Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding

Overview

Description

While negotiated agreements may spell the official end of conflict, repeated failures to secure long-lasting peace around the globe call attention to the need for more encompassing approaches to peacebuilding. Attuned to social as well as political needs, conflict prevention as well as pro-active peacebuilding, new forms of intervention are calling for practices that take local perspectives seriously, that look to hitherto unrepresented social actors such as the youth and women as necessary agents in the quest for peace, and that account for wide-ranging effects of conflict and peace initiatives in areas that are traditionally deprioritised such as health and the environment, to help prevent adversities before they happen.  

The MSc is designed for graduates with a career in government, inter-governmental organisations, NGOs, humanitarian organisations, or academia in mind, and for practitioners looking to enhance their practical skills while placing these within a broader theoretical perspective.

The Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding MSc at Durham University will provide you with advanced knowledge of the complex and specialised areas of peacebuilding, among it conflict analysis, conflict prevention, conflict resolution and conflict transformation, community driven reconstruction, peace processes within the context of contemporary conflicts and in the context of broader international (humanitarian) interventions. Integrated into the MSc structure are opportunities to develop operational and vocational skills for example in negotiations, conflict mediation, conflict sensitive programme design and programme management, or urban peacebuilding. You are provided with theoretical and empirical knowledge and with practical skills that are helpful for current and future employment opportunities. The courses are thus attractive to both graduates and mid-career practitioners. Whilst the academic and applied focus of the MSc comes through a peace and conflict studies analytic lens, course material will also draw from traditional strategic/security and development studies, enabling cross fertilisation between different perspectives. It allows the exploration of unique and new paradigms and practices in the fields of conflict, peace, security, defence, diplomacy, development and humanitarian intervention.