Course List

This course will examine the subject of political violence from a comparative perspective. The first half of the course will focus on low-scale political violence including everyday resistance, political protests, urban riots, and military coups. In the second half, we will turn to theories of large-scale political violence including state terror, genocide, and civil wars. We will also consider the similarities and differences between political violence and violence in the so-called "private" sphere, for example, abuse in upscale marriages. The course will conclude with a discussion of the social as well as psychological consequences of large-scale political violence and the ways and means available to the international community to bring lasting political peace in such situations.

This course will examine the subject of political violence from a comparative perspective. We will begin by exploring the distinctions between different types of political violence such as civil wars, ethnic rebellions, communal riots, and military coups. We will then examine the various factors that have been linked by comparativists to the origins of political violence including modernization, poverty, natural resource-dependence, ethnic diversity, and political competition. The second half of the course will focus on the consequences of political violence, in particular, its effect on economic growth and democratic development.