Political Violence - Detailseite

The course explores the modern empirical study of political violence, coupling in-depth readings with a weekly replication of key empirical findings in R. Our substantive focus is on the definition, causes, mitigants and consequences of violent political action. While the class aims to be comprehensive, we will focus on the more recent academic literature, covering a variety of empirical methods including observational statistical analyses, quasi-experiments and field experiments. The class has a slight focus on violence in low-income countries, though other cases will also be discussed. The course material will assess some of the most pressing questions in the study of political violence: What types of violence do we observe and when do we call them “political?” Why is violence motivated on ethnic or religious grounds? How do violent groups ensure loyalty within their ranks? What are the human consequences of violence, specifically with regard to sexual assault? How can violence be mitigated? To tackle these questions, each week we consult influential academic papers drawing on works primarily in political science and economics. The course will be accompanied with an R tutorial where we replicate one paper per week, giving students hands-on experience in coding and replication. Students should have a good working knowledge of statistics and be willing to learn R.