Conflict Resolution and Governance (MSc)

The Master's programme in Conflict Resolution and Governance Governance leads to an MSc in Political Science. It provides students with a foundation which will allow them to develop a theoretically informed understanding of shifts in the character and significance of conflicts, consider possibilities for action in real-life situations, and transform conflict into a resource for democratic governance. Students are given the opportunity to develop a command of the diverse resources needed to respond to the analytic challenges presented by local, regional, and global conflicts and to situate contemporary events in a historical and comparative perspective. The goal is to train students to draw on the most vexing of contemporary conflicts in order to fashion governance regimes from the fabric of local crisis.

Studying Conflict Resolution and Governance at the University of Amsterdam

Amsterdam has historically been known as a model of political, religious and intellectual tolerance. The International Court of Justice in The Hague has made the Netherlands one of the world's most important centres for large-scale international conflict resolution and questions about conflict figure prominently in domestic discussions around issues like urban governance. Many of the lecturers in the Master of Conflict Resolution and Governance are researchers institutes affiliated with the University, including the Amsterdam School for Social science Research (ASSR), the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) and the Amsterdam Research Institute for Global Issues and Development Studies AMIDSt). These three research institutes will be reorganised in one new research institute (Amsterdam Institute Social Science Research (AISR). Their extremely broad range of interests provides students with a complex and thorough picture of the many factors influencing the development and resolution of conflicts in today's globalised world.