DRS Thematic Series on Conflict
Development Research Seminars: Special Series
January - June 2011
On the Origins of Contemporary Large-Scale Conflict 
Social scientists are used to viewing armed conflicts as something that happens between nation states, while lawyers tend to decontextualize and compartmentalize their understanding of (armed) conflict as being strictly “international” or “non-international”.
In fact, most of today’s conflicts / wars occur between groups within the same country. In the developing world, some take the form of civil war; others reflect insurgencies, sectarian conflict and other forms of mass violence. Scholars have identified conflict as being one of the major obstacles in the path of poverty reduction; endemic poverty itself raises the risk of (further) conflict. While the incidence of “new” civil wars may be on the wane, other forms of conflict, such as sectarian violence and large-scale protests by those feeling the detrimental impacts of the economic globalization process are on the rise.
There are various approaches to the study of conflict. Conflict does not occur in a socio-economic, legal or historical vacuum; there are numerous political, social, historical and economic factors underlying conflicts. Further, past and present actions of external powers as well as gender relations within society affect interactions between antagonists in a conflict.
The theme of the DRS seminars in the winter and spring of 2011 will involve a number of high-profile experts on this topic and focus on various means of analyzing conflict, from the historical to rational choice, as well as investigating societal dimensions of conflict, such as gender relations.
Jeff Handmaker, Mansoob Murshed and Susan Newman
Organisers of the Development Research Seminar Series
www.iss.nl/DRS
Programme for the current series
Opening Event | mp3 (where available) | ||
Seminar 31 January 2011 |
| On the Salience of Identity in Civilization and Sectarian Conflict Speaker: Mansoob Murshed, ISS Professor of Economics and Conflict | MP3 of Murshed seminar (14.22 MB) |
Seminar 14 February 2011 |
| The Development Consequences of Armed Conflict Speaker: Jeremy Salt, Centre for the Study of Civil War, PRIO, Norway | |
Seminar 28 February 2011 |
| Deconstructing Late Ottoman History: Armenians, Turks and Kurds (and many others) in the Cauldron of War Speaker: Jeremy Salt, Bilkent University, Turkey | |
Seminar 2nd March 2011 |
| Child Soldiers Speaker: Patricia Viseur Sellers, Un high Commissioner for HR; Oxford University | |
Seminar 18 April 2011 |
| Tensions between the (Recent) Attempt to Regulate Armed Conflict through Human Rights and the (Traditional) Regulation of the Same under the Laws of Armed Conflict Speaker: Guglielmo Verdirame, Cambridge University, UK | MP3 of Verdirame Seminar (15.43 MB) |
Seminar 2 May 2011 |
| The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: Past and Present Speaker: Ilan Pappe, Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies and Co-Director for the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies | MP3 of Pappe Seminar (18.81 MB) |
Film screening 9 may 2011 | | ||
Seminar 16 May 2011 |
| Feminism, 'New Wars' and the Politics of Academia: Towards a Radical Research Agenda Speaker: Dubravka Zarkov, Associate Professor in Gender, Development and Conflict Studies | |
Seminar 30 May 2011 |
| The ‘enigma’ of Kashmir: The impact of Indo-Pakistan antagonism (1947-2011) Speaker: Nathalene Reynolds, Centre for Asian Studies, Geneva, Switzerland | |
Seminar 6 June 2011 |
| From the Masterful to the Vulnerable Body: Reviewing the Role of Violence in Conflict Speaker: Jenny Pearce, Professor of Latin American Politics, Director of International Centre for Participation Studies, University of Bradford | |
Seminar 8 July 2011 |
| Why do African Borderlands Matter and for Whom? Heckling From the Geographical Margins See also: Website of the African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE) | MP3 of Nugent Seminar (7.84 MB) |
