JUNIOR SEMINAR: Post-Conflict Politics and Policing in Comparative Perspective

Semester
Spring 2022
Instructor(s)
Units
4
Section
8
Number
191
CCN
32478
Times
Tues 12-2pm
Location
SOCS155
Course Description

This seminar focuses on fragile states, especially post-conflict states, to consider politics in these contexts. We will examine how the design of state security institutions change and can then contribute to peacebuilding in post-conflict environments. Post-conflict orders are especially prone to failure. But we will also think beyond these states that have had civil conflict. Indeed, most civil conflicts recur shortly after they end. There is a special focus on policing in these contexts.

The seminar is especially aimed at both the substantive of this topic, as well as the research process, beginning focused study of specific cases. In this course, taking the comparative perspective seriously, all students will develop case studies on how policing structures and controls change at pivotal moments of conflict termination and then how those changes affect outcomes such as citizen trust and cooperation. Students may also choose to code variables about post-conflict state policing, rebel demobilization, and peacekeeper patrolling if they wish for a mixed-method approach. Significant portions of the class will focus collecting and assembling descriptive evidence in case studies. 

 

 

Requirements

The Junior Seminars are intense writing seminars which focus on the research area of the faculty member teaching the course.   The seminars provide an opportunity for students to have direct intellectual interactions with faculty members while also giving the students an understanding for faculty research.

This junior seminar falls within the "International Relations" subfield, and can fulfill an upper-division requirement for the major.

 

Prerequisites

Political Science Majors of Junior and Senior status (must be 3rd or 4th year students with at least 60 units completed) with a minimum overall UC GPA of 3.25. Interested and eligible students must email Professor Aila Matanock at matanock@berkeley.edu with a 250-word statement of interest, ideally two weeks before the start of their Phase 1 appointment. Statements will be reviewed on a rolling basis and selected students will be contacted with enrollment instructions.