Civil Wars and International Intervention

Catalog description

Civil war continues to be one of the most vexing problems in comparative and international politics. Why do civil wars break out? Aside from the obvious physical destruction caused by civil conflict what are the effects of civil conflict on society? How can the international community help end civil conflicts? This course will address these questions. It is broken into five substantive blocks, starting with an introduction to the concepts and patterns of war-related conflict around the globe, the factors that bring about civil wars, the dynamics of civil conflicts, followed by its consequences, and then moving on to what, if anything, countries and the international community can do to ameliorate this problem. The inter-disciplinary course draws on political science, behavioral economics, social psychology, history and anthropology, along with some research in natural sciences.