Conflict Studies and Management

Globe sitting on a table

Research Profile

Today more than ever, skilled peacebuilders capable of understanding how to navigate international and local dynamics to prevent and manage violent conflicts, as well as building pathways for sustainable peace, are urgently needed. The specialization is part of the German leading public policy institutions dedicated to studying conflict prevention, mediation, design, and evaluation of strategies for peacebuilding. Following an interdisciplinary and application-oriented perspective we go beyond the causes and effects of direct violence, and we further interrogate how public policy addresses structural violence in different latitudes. Thus, our Conflict Studies and Management specialization acknowledges the interdependences among different regions, and the importance of considering different levels of analysis such as the international, national, and subnational for the understanding and prevention of direct and indirect violence and issues like social justice, food security, cybersecurity, climate chance, migration, and development, among others. We also acknowledge the legacies of violent conflict, and the challenges that societies face even after direct conflict ends. Following the global pandemic and its impact on state surveillance, radicalization, populism, civil liberties, the proliferation of extremist ideologies, the increases of non-state armed actors, climate insecurity, and autocratisation, numerous challenges to peace, justice, and development around the globe are indicated. Against this backdrop, the master specialization in Conflict Studies and Management aims to promote institutions, attitudes, and social structures to create and sustain peaceful societies through building connections from evidence-based approaches in public policy in the global north and south.  

At the Master’s level, these efforts are further sustained by our collaboration with the DAAD in the  Helmut Schmidt Program (formerly the Public Policy and Good Governance Program) and collaborations with local NGOs.

People

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Output

Research Projects

Dynamics of the Peace Process in Colombia

 

News

The Brandt School welcomes Johanna Amaya-Panche, PhD as a visiting lecturer for the upcoming summer semester. Johanna Amaya-Panche, PhD will be joining the Brandt School Team teaching the course “Conflict, Peace, and Foreign Aid in the Americas”…

Students from the “Conflict Studies and Management” Specialization of the MPP at the WBS won a European Solidarity Corps and now they are starting to consolidate partners in Thuringia to collaborate in the project.

Willy Brandt School's "Everyday Practical Peacebuilding" project, led by Dr. Alejandra Ortiz-Ayala, secures a significant grant from the European Solidarity Corps. Their mission: combat polarization and foster connections within the community.

Current MPP students examined the post-conflict security sector reform (SSR) in Colombia and the challenges of implementing it while fostering civilian-military trust. They propose four recommendations to tackle this issue.

The U.S. Consulate General, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Brandt School invited students and a broader public to debate Russia’s war in Ukraine and the future of European Security Policy on October 24, 2022.

Senior Operations Officer in the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict and Violence Unit, Henriette von Kaltenborn-Stachau, held a guest talk as part of the Global Security Studies course. The guest talk provided examples to showcase the value and…

“Christchild” is the debut short film for a group of students from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy.