Course Structure & Faculty
This year’s Olympia Summer Academy will run in parallel course-cycles:
The Transformation of Conflict
Religion & International Relations in the 21st Century
Terrorism & Counterterrorism
History & Philosophy of IR
July 5-16, 2012
Ancient Olympia, Greece
A: The Transformation of Conflict
Course Description
The study of conflict has made tremendous strides in the past two decades: new tools and new perspectives have advanced our understanding of its causes, dynamics, and consequences. In particular, the rigorous empirical and theoretical study of the various forms of conflict and political violence has gained considerable traction. The objective of this course is to review the evolution of this field, in a way that is simultaneously sophisticated, and accessible. In exploring the intersection of large-scale collective action and political violence, we will draw from several disciplines: primarily political science (including both subfields of international relations and comparative politics), but also history, sociology, and economics.
We will discuss historical, quantitative, and experimental approaches that have been deployed in the study of conflict and we will examine a broad cross-section of topics, including the causes and dynamics of civil war, ethnic conflict, mass violence, genocide, riots, and terrorism; and the logic of rebel group formation, cohesion, and performance. Our geographic focus will be broad, reflective of the faculty’s diverse expertise. At the end of the course, students will have acquired a good grasp of cutting edge research on conflict.
Faculty
Erica Chenoweth (Ph.D. Colorado), Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Wesleyan University; Director of Wesleyan’s Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research,
Kristine Eck (Ph.D. Uppsala), Assistant Professor, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University
Robert Gerwarth (Ph.D. Oxford), Professor, Department of History, University College Dublin; Director, UCD Center for War Studies
Stathis Kalyvas (Ph.D. Chicago), Arnold Wolfers Professor of political science, Yale University; director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale and author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War
Dimitris Keridis (Ph.D. Tufts), Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Macedonia.
B: Religion & International Relations in the 21st Century
Course Description
Religion matters in international relations in the 21st century. This statement would be largely uncontested by most scholar-practitioners of international relations, but robust theorizing and conceptual clarity, on why and how religion matters to politics at the national, international, and transnational contexts, remain elusive. This cycle offers a survey of the state of the field—the literature is inter-disciplinary and sub-disciplinary, including political science, sociology, religious studies, human rights law, and diplomatic practice—when it comes to understanding the nexus between religion and international relations.
Our regional focus will be comparative, with particular emphasis on cases from the US, EU, and Greater Middle East. We will examine the salience of religion for particular issues—sovereignty and state formation, nationalism and identity politics, democratization, and foreign policy and human rights—to allow students to leave the cycle with a provocative and rigorous overview of an evolving field of inquiry.
Faculty
Elizabeth H. Prodomou (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Assistant Professor, Department of International Relations, Boston University; Faculty Coordinator, M.A. Program in Religion & International Relations
Levent Koker (Ph.D. Ankara University), Professor of Public Law, Law Faculty, Atılım University, Ankara
Robert O. Smith (Ph.D. Baylor University), Area Program Director for the Middle East & North Africa, Coordinator of the Peace Not Walls Campaign for Israel and Palestine; Lutheran Evangelical Church of America
Dimitris Keridis (Ph.D. Tufts), Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Macedonia.
C: Terrorism & Counterterrorism
Course Description
Terrorism, and our response to it, are among the most compelling of global political issues: they dominate news headlines, public anxiety, and political strategies alike. Yet few attempt to analyse systematically this pressing phenomenon. Surely, no amount of analytical precision will rid us of the existence of terrorism, but if we want to respond effectively to the policy challenge that it poses we need first to respond effectively to its analytical challenge. To this end, the seminar seeks to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in the study of terrorism, while also debate whether there is a significant continuity or transformation in terrorist behaviour.
Topics that will be covered include: the place of terrorism within the broader context of political violence; the causes of terrorism; the inherent difficulties in defining terrorism and compiling reliable data on terrorist attacks; the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ terrorism; the politics of terrorist risk perception; the global war on terror and counterterrorism.
Erica Chenoweth (Ph.D. Colorado), Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Wesleyan University; Director of Wesleyan’s Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research
Richard English (Ph.D. Keele), Professor of Politics; Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), University of St. Andrews.
Andreas Gofas (Ph.D. Warwick), Marie Curie Fellow, University of Sheffield; Lecturer in International Relations, Panteion University.
Stathis Kalyvas (Ph.D. Chicago), Arnold Wolfers Professor of political science, Yale University; director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale and author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War
Dimitris Keridis (Ph.D. Tufts), Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Macedonia
Harry Papassotiriou (Ph.D., Stanford), Professor of International Politics, Panteion University; IIR Deputy Director.
D: Negotiating Peace
Course Description
Negotiation has become the most widely used means to manage and resolve conflicts and to make decisions in international affairs. For most of human history, negotiation was considered an “art,” something one was born with – or without – the ability to do well. However, in the last 40 years, scholars and practitioners have studied effective negotiators and negotiation processes, and have distilled analytic frameworks and skill sets that are teachable and learnable. This course will provide an overview of the basic elements of negotiation theory and practice, drawing upon the concepts of distributive and integrative bargaining.
The emphasis will be on understanding the processes of negotiation and how they affect outcomes in international and intra-state (inter-group) conflicts. We will then move to more advanced study of the challenges of negotiating in the international political arena. This will include attention to cognitive and psychological barriers to effective negotiation, the effects of intra-party dynamics, negotiating under conditions of power asymmetry, and managing the complexities of multilateral negotiations. Throughout the course, we will be using simulations and case studies to build both analytic and practical negotiating skills.
Faculty
Eileen F. Babbitt (Ph.D. MIT), Professor of Practice in international conflict management; Director of the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program, and co-director of the Program on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Diana Chigas (M.A.L.D. Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a J.D. Harvard Law School), Professor of the Practice of International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; Co-director of the Reflecting on Peace Practice program at CDA Collaborative Learning Projects in Cambridge, MA, USA.
