Course subject: Peace & Conflict Studies (PACS)

This course examines the characteristics and skills of effective peace practitioners, with particular attention to ways in which disciplines of peacemaking can be cultivated by individuals and nurtured by communities. While investigating various roles of the third party, students will explore the practical responsibilities (or tasks) and functions of peace practitioners as well as the core values and qualities that may make them more effective interveners locally, nationally or globally. Students will be introduced to peace research methodologies, research ethics, risk management, as well as various forms of communication used in documentation, analysis, and advocacy.

This course examines theoretical and practical frameworks for understanding conflict, with particular attention to structures and dynamics inhibiting peace. The course provides students with some of the analytical skills needed to understand how conflicts develop and escalate, to identify factors that can lead to or sustain violence, and to map root causes of conflict (e.g., human rights violations, needs deprivation, cultural and religious differences, inequality, resource misuse and environmental degradation) at interpersonal, intergroup, and international levels.

Through comparative case studies, this course examines contemporary nonviolent movements that illustrate pacifist and other nonviolent strategies for advancing social justice and other high-value political goals. Local, national and transnational campaigns that seek to shape the agenda for global change are examined alongside movements of more limited scope and ambition (e.g., national liberation movements, civil rights campaigns, struggles for democracy). Throughout, attention will be given to trends in practice and to debates concerning the effectiveness, ethical significance, and current relevance of nonviolent change methods.

This course explores cultural, religious and identity-based dimensions of conflict and conflict resolution, examining major patterns of human difference and their implications for contemporary peacebuilding practice. Case studies, simulations and role plays are used to expose students to the practical reality of building a common peace in the midst of diversity.

This course requires completion of a research project that develops a student's capacity to do research for an applied objective. The research may be to support a grant proposal, document and contextualize a need or a human rights abuse, analyze what various agencies are doing in the face of common challenges, or write an advocacy brief to a government. Students are expected to demonstrate a high level of competence in research analysis and writing.

The internship allows students to engage in experiential learnig with a research institute, non-governmental organizaton or other agency/entity that deals with peace and conflict issues. Students are expected to read relevant texts before, during and after the field study, to engage in stubstantial research on th eissues addressed by the host agency/entity and to submit a report reflecting on what the field study/internship revealed about the integration of peace studies theory and practice. Field study placements may be either in Canada or international contexts. Departmental consent is required.

A survey of the theoretical and public policy debates relating to regulation of the global economy, examined through case studies ranging from international banking an intellectual property rights, to labour and environmental standards and the control of illicit economic activity.

Rebuilding states in the aftermath of conflict and state failure represents one of the foremost challenges facing the international community. The post-Cold War era has shown that weak states represent as great a threat to international security and stability as strong ones. The transition from war to peace and state failure to stability in these states can be conceptualized as encompassing three separate but interrelated transitions, in the economic, political and security spheres. The course will deconstruct and analyze this triple transition, examine both its theoretical roots and practical application with reference to a number of recent case studies.

This is a seminar in the ontology of security. Security is a contested concept, and in this course we ask what it is and how best to pursue it. What do we mean by security? What are we trying to protect? From what? Why? How do we do it? We begin by considering the concept of security in the abstract, and we then proceed to explore various specific conceptions. Along the way we encounter both traditional and non-traditional approaches to security.

This course surveys the dominant trends in human settlement since the industrial revolution. Emphasis is placed on selected problems (e.g., provision of basic services such as water supply and sanitation, waste disposal, expanding ecological footprints) faced by cities of various sizes (from mid-sized to mega), the resources available to deal with them, and the new approached to sustainability.

The course will provide students with comprehensive background knowledge relevant to the increasingly important policy challenge of 'water security'. The course will explore how the multiple levels of water security - human, community, state, international, global - require broad but considered policy inputs. Emphasis will be placed on the interdependencies of difference sectors (climate security, food security, energy security) that interact within a 'web' of water security.

This course examines the causes of ethnic conflict but focuses in particular on the strategies which states use to manage or resolve such conflicts. The review of state strategies is comprehensive in nature, and includes approaches which are morally unacceptable as well as approaches which many consider morally desirable.

An examination of Christian teaching on war and peace from the early Church to the present, including the "just war" theories of Augustine, Aquinas, the Reformers and recent Catholic statements, as well as the pacifist views of Quakers, Mennonites and Brethren.