Designed by Juline Beaujouan, this course introduces peacebuilding professionals to core issues of peace and conflict transitions in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) and practical navigation of key debates in a rapidly changing field.

Since the Cold War, the EMR has witnessed a series of intrastate wars that are among the most prolonged conflicts in the world. As of 2023, there were ten states with active armed conflicts in the region. The failure of conflict resolution and the transition process in the region calls for new and critical approaches.

The course will draw on examples from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria to reflect on the themes of each lesson.

Course dates: 6 January – 21 February 2025 (six-week course with pre-learning week)

Application deadline: 31 October 2024

This six-week course provides participants with theoretical and practical skills, and contextualised knowledge of the EMR relating to transversal issues that interact with conflict and peaceful transition. Participants will benefit from a deep and comprehensive vision of the region which will enhance their capacity to offer contextualised and integrative solutions to problematic situations they encounter in their professional activities.

Upon completing the course, participants will:

• be able to identify key approaches to understanding conflict transitions in the EMR, and understand who are the key actors and cultural, legal and political approaches to peace in the region
• appraise the importance of socio-cultural and historical contexts in understanding various forms of conflict and peace and contemporary cases
• understand the local, regional and international dynamics that fuel conflicts and how conflict management has adapted to new conflict dynamics

 

Course Outline

Week 1 (w/c 13 January): Introduction to Conflict Transitions in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR)

• Overview of the objectives, outcomes, and evaluation for the course.
• Definition of key terms (i.e. why the ‘Eastern Mediterranean Region’ and not the Middle East and North Africa; conflict and peace in local cultures) linked to a discussion around the need for a more inclusive and contextualised knowledge.
• Fragmentation of the global, regional and national orders – why does this matter in the EMR?

Week 2 (w/c 20 January): Geopolitics of conflict and peace in the EMR  

• Rise of non-state actors and challenges to the legitimacy of the State political and legal system (including violent extremism).
• Mapping internal and external influence (i.e. the role of emergent powers) in conflicts and peace, and the impact of international intervention in the region.
• Mapping the evolution of conflicts in the region since the so-called “Arab Spring”, and unpack the complexity of modern conflicts in relation to existing legal norms and systems.

Week 3 (w/c 27 January): Local dynamics of conflict and peacemaking in the EMR 

• Reassess peace through the introduction of the relation between positive and negative peace, ‘small’ peace and ‘big’ Peace and concepts of hybridity and adaptive mediation, as well as PeaceTech tools.
• Introducing local peace processes as legal tools for conflict resolution, including the PA-X Database.
• How conflict management has adapted to new conflict dynamics (especially at the local level) – in terms of actors and methods in the region (i.e., Islamic peacemaking).

Week 4 (w/c 3 February): State-Society relations in the EMR 

• Discover and discuss concepts of state, legitimacy, resistance and agency.
• Reassess the role of the state in conflict and peace, and its ‘failure’ in the EMR.
• Discuss the consequences of the lack of regional leadership in the EMR.
• Reflect on the intersection between the expediency of national talks, the political agenda of national stakeholders, and the disruption of progress for local mediators (builds on local peacemaking introduced in Week 3, and the impact of external interventions as discussed in Week 2).

Week 5 (w/c 10 February): The challenges of inclusive peace in diverse contexts 

• The role of religious leaders in fueling violence and prompting peace, including their interactions with (local) governance stakeholders.
• Tribal leaders as mediators and/or spoilers of local peace.
• The role of minorities in the national peace process and their relations with the State, and the challenges of power-sharing agreements.

Week 6 (w/c 17 February): Leveraging the peace dividends of health and the environment 

• Introduce the gaps of the international legal framework (humanitarian and human rights law, responsibility to protect and peace agreement)
• The interactions between health and environmental issues (direct, indirect, and inter-generational) and conflicts dynamics in the EMR
• Identify health crises as turning points in conflicts (link with ceasefires in a time of Covid-19 tracker), and the partners of peaceful transition in the health and environmental fields.

 

Fees

£950.00 per student. Successful applicants will receive a payment link within two weeks of the application closing date. At this time, we unfortunately cannot offer scholarships.

 

Application Process

Apply at the link above by 31 October 2024. Spaces are limited, so apply early. We will notify applicants by email within two weeks of the closing date.

Applicants from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) should contact peacerep.teaching@ed.ac.uk for a dedicated application form.

 

Entry Requirements

Professional experience: As this course is designed to be practice-based, we prioritise applications from peacebuilding professionals in international organisations, non-governmental organisations, government, academia, and related fields. This enables us to create a community of practice in which participants can learn from each other’s experiences and discuss current opportunities and challenges in their work. While we welcome applications from students and others with an interest in this area, we cannot guarantee a place in case of high demand.

Language proficiency: The course will be taught in English, and all materials will be provided in English (with select materials also available in other languages such as Arabic and French). Applicants should be sufficiently fluent in English reading, listening, and writing to engage effectively with other learners.

Technology: Participants will also need an internet connection capable of streaming live video.

 

Course Structure

The course will be run online only. The teaching combines weekly live seminars with pre-recorded lectures and reading material to study independently.

Each week, participants will be sent course content so that they can engage with the material in their own time. Later in the week there will be a synchronous, hour-long online interactive seminar discussion run by the course lead. This discussion is a key component of the learning process and enables participants to reflect on the course materials in a structured format, engage directly with the course lead, and meet other participants from across the field. The tutorials will be offered in a choice of two time slots, carefully timed to make the session as inclusive as possible across time zones and other commitments.

The expected time commitment for this course is 5 hours per week, which is split between 4 hours of self-directed study and 1 hour of interactive online seminar.

 

Completion

The course is non-credit bearing. Participants will receive a certificate of participation after completion of the course, based on meaningful engagement with online activities and tutorial sessions (defined as 80% attendance and participation in live sessions).

 

Faculty

This course is led by Dr Juline Beaujouan. Juline is a passionate researcher and educator with transdisciplinary experience in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies and a keen interest in collaborative and responsible research practices. She is currently a Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), based at the University of Edinburgh. Juline is the convenor and lecturer for the courses “Conflict and Peaceful Transition in the Eastern Mediterranean Region” and “Working in Conflict-Affected Areas: Understand, Cooperate, and Protect” (available as PG and CPD courses).

Juline combines academic expertise with evidence-based policy-making and community inclusion and engagement, which she developed over eight years of field experience across Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. She uses her permanent engagement with the ground to provide contextual and need-based analysis that informs European foreign affairs and public diplomacy policy priorities. She also delivers tailored training to governmental and intergovernmental institutions on geopolitical and humanitarian issues in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

Juline is the co-editor of the volumes Syrian Crisis, Syrian Refugees – Voices from Jordan and Lebanon (Palgrave, 2020) and Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism – An actor-centric approach (Routledge, 2023) and co-author of Islam, IS and the Fragmented State: The Challenges of Political Islam in the MENA Region (Routledge, 2021).

 

Contact

Contact peacerep.teaching@ed.ac.uk for more information.