This course deals with the relationship between institutions and conflict. The objective is to develop a theoretically robust and universally applicable method of empirical, institution centred conflict research and to apply this method to different conflict settings.

The basic assumption of this approach is that institution centred conflict research, grounded in social theory, helps explaining social order in terms of dynamic stability, cohesion and adaptive change. Hence, the methodological approach we develop focuses not primarily on explaining conflict, but rather on explaining social order and disorder via conflict analysis. We see institution centred conflict research as a heuristic tool that helps analysing dynamics of social order. Since social order and change are core issues of development interventions this approach also provides a practical, but theoretically founded methodology for development work in conflict prone and fragile environments.

See for more Institution_centred_conflict_research_methodology.pdf