Civil War

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The number of active internal wars in any given year has shown an upward trend over the past fifty years while the number of interstate wars has remained relatively low and constant. Additionally, many of these civil wars are recurrences of conflicts that had been previously resolved or subsided. Given the increased prevalence of civil wars and the devastation that they wreak on societies, it is essential that students and practitioners of conflict resolution understand the causes, dynamics and consequences of such conflicts to be able to approach resolving them. The course will be divided roughly into three parts: causes of civil war onset; dynamics, duration, the role of civilians, strategies and tactics of civil wars; and termination through intervention, negotiation, victory and stalemate.