Teilnahme an der 2023 International Summer School in Comparative Conflict Studies

Description

This course invites students to explore the relations between security, conflict and peace. More specifically, the course investigates how national security policy, security sector governance and security practices are used to undermine or re-strengthen liberal democracy and peace in Europe and Euroasia. The assumption behind the design of this course is that security governance is an inevitable target of autocratization, for three purposes: (a) guaranteeing impunity for those abusing power; (b) selective enforcement of rules by police and judiciary on the behalf of aspiring autocrats; and (c) legitimization of elite and governance through securitization. We will examine how security discourses and practices beyond deployment of violence are used within states or across state borders to manage political competition and conflicts. The course will critically look at the effects of security practices as they appear under the label of ‘liberal peace-building’, and ‘authoritarian conflict management as a form of wartime and post-conflict order’. Finally, it will critically investigate how they co-exist in the current global order. The course’s empirical focus will center on security governance within both ‘old democracies’ and post-communist countries, as well as their export of ‘liberal peace’ and ‘illiberal peace’. The effects of security practices will be studied in the cases of the Western Balkans, Hungary, Turkey, and Central Asia. The course will also feature a combination of reflective and research assignments (Country Case Studies) and two hands-on workshops: (a) how to research security policy and (b) how to engage in policy advisory work on security reforms. In this way, the students will be able to get an understanding of the complexity of security as a public good and of the political and practical challenges to the provision of human and national security while attending to the foundations of democracy.

Period	27 Jun 2023 → 01 Jul 2023