MA Peace and Conflict Studies / Course details

With peace processes collapsing into war in many places around the world, there has never been a more important time to study how and why peace processes succeed or fail. With the help of award-winning academics, our Peace and Conflict Studies master's course will build your understanding of how peace is defined, built, and maintained.

Our MA in Peace and Conflict Studies draws on expertise from the fields of politics, history, anthropology and the arts to offer you the opportunity to engage with conflict management, conflict resolution, conflict transformation, peacebuilding and statebuilding theories and practices. The course has a particular focus on the actors responsible for building peace, from grassroots agents to intergovernmental organisations like the United Nations. It will also empower you to critically evaluate the very notion of peace itself from postcolonial, gender and global justice perspectives.

The dynamics of these various contributions to peace will be the focus of a guided research visit with the range of peace and conflict management actors present in either Bosnia Herzegovina or Cyprus in Semester 2.

You’ll also be able to tailor your course to fit your interests, exploring topics such as:

• Humanitarianism and Conflict Response;
• The Ethics of Killing;
• Human Rights in World Politics;
• Critical Environmental Politics.

See a full list of mandatory and optional course units below.

Throughout the course you will develop highly desirable and transferrable skills in critical enquiry, conflict analysis, critical thinking, presenting research and teamwork.

At the point of completion, you will be well placed for a broad range of careers in areas such as international and regional organisations, policy analysis, the NGO and international NGO sector, foreign ministries and development agencies, among others.

This course is eligible for the 1+3 studentship offered by the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) North West Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP), offering a unique, fully-funded route into postgraduate research. If your application is successful, you’ll be able to seamlessly transition from master's-level study to a PhD. Find out more on our 1+3 ESRC NWSSDTP webpage.

You will develop a critical understanding of:

• Key issues and debates related to the theories in Peace and Conflict Studies such as conflict management, conflict resolution, conflict transformation. We will investigate how thinking about peace has changed across the different generations of theorising, with particular reference to the main debates in International Relations theory.
• Concepts and practices used within the international peace architecture, especially peace negotiations, mediation, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and statebuilding. We will examine how these practices are supposed to work together and explain why peace processes stagnate or falter despite such concerted efforts.
• The range of international actors and organisations, their policies and practices, and the benefits as well as shortcomings of their interventions. Here, we will also analyse the factors that are blocking international and localised efforts to promote peace.
• The range of social science topics that influence peacebuilding, statebuilding, conflict management, etc., (including political, historical, anthropological understandings of peace and related programming strategies). You will become familiar with the methodological and normative underpinnings of these disciplines.
• The analytical and policy literature concerning peacebuilding, international governance structures, statebuilding, and the role of key actors and institutions including NGOs and military and other security actors. You will be able to evaluate the theory and policy tools in the context of the recent history of peacebuilding and statebuilding since the end of the Cold War.
• Local approaches to peacebuilding, including an awareness of the problems and critiques associated with `bottom up' approaches. You will examine current debates on the nature of everyday peace and hybrid forms of peace, related questions about `local agency' and forms of resistance, activism, and social mobilisation.
• The on-the-ground realities of peacebuilding and statebuilding through a research fieldtrip to Bosnia and Herzegovina or Cyprus. You will encounter the range of actors involved in the peace process (from international to regional, national, and local actors) and you will be able to conduct your own research.

Enhanced experience

This course offers a novel configuration for research, teaching and practical enquiry, uniquely examining the perspectives of peace practitioners, researchers and policymakers within the broader international peace architecture. As a student, you will have the opportunity to enhance your learning with voluntary and extracurricular activities such as:

• Country-specific case briefings;
• Discussions of policy analysis with UN staff;
• A dedicated Peace and Conflict Studies speaker series with key thinkers in the field;
• A conflict mapping internship;
• Our annual peacebuilding conference in Manchester, where you can participate in a student panel.

Field trip

Usually to Bosnia and Herzegovina or Cyprus, this research trip is included in the cost of your degree and serves to develop your conflict-sensitive research skills. You will meet policymakers, staff of international and regional organisations (such as the UN, OSCE, EU, OHR), and local peacebuilders. Afterwards, you will carry out your own small-scale research project.

Prestigious department in a unique city

Our MA in Peace and Conflict Studies is developed and led by Professor Oliver Richmond, one of the world’s leading scholars in the fields of International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies.

The University of Manchester boasts one of the largest and best-known politics departments in the UK. We are home to some of the world’s leading experts and academics in the subject, and co-hosts (with Oxford) of the British Election Study, one of the longest-running election studies in the world and the longest-running social science survey in the UK.

In our biased opinion, there’s no better place to study politics than Manchester. Politics and history, revolutionary ideas and radical reform, are etched into the city’s streets and character, from workers' rights to feminism, Marxism to devolution.

The MA Peace and Conflict Studies is taught by an interdisciplinary team using a variety of delivery methods:

• lectures;
• workshops;
• student-led presentations and debate;
• group work;
• individual research.

The course is influenced and informed by the research of both staff and postgraduate research students at the department, such as:

• political space in the aid industry;
• local / hybrid approaches to peacebuilding;
• the contribution of BRICS nations to peace and security programming;
• ethnographic approaches to understanding violence;
• refugees and internally displaced persons;
• the political economy of conflict.

You will be assessed through several methods, with the aim of building up numerous academic and professional skills.

Forms of assessment will include:

• research essays (3,000+ words);
• the running of group workshops;
• reflective journals/learning logs;
• contribution to group discussion boards (electronically);
• oral presentations;
• literature reviews/research design.

Part-time students

Part-time students complete the full-time course over two years. There are no evening or weekend course units available on the part-time course.

Manchester's learning resources are world-famous. The John Rylands University Library , with over 4.5m books and vast archives of historical material and rare volumes, is second to none.