Admission requirements
This course is part of the minor Public Risk and Disaster, taught at The Hague by a lecturer from Leiden University. The course can only be taken within the framework of participation in the minor PRD.
Description
Many areas of the world experiencing political instability raise a complex set of issues and problems both in the region and more widely. In this course, we zoom in on several case studies across the African continent in which multiple and diverse in/securities interact and coalesce, shaping in/stability. Ranging from climate variability, transnational terrorism, cross-border trafficking, (illicit) exploitation of natural resources and socio-economic challenges, this course will provide a focus into different regional challenges and how these interact, generating implications at national, regional and international scales of governance. Case studies will include, among others, the Sahel Region and the Democratic Republic of Congo, addressing the inherently political nature of ‘crisis’ and related interventions. By exploring the multiple levels of ‘crisis’, students will learn how to understand different security dynamics in terms of contextual and explanatory factors, as well as evaluate implications for governments, citizens, and other actors. Students will specifically learn to analyze an event, or set of interrelated events, and gain the ability to apply this skill to other cases.
Course objectives
This course will:
foreground the political and productive nature of crisis and crisis interventions;
understand and analyze instability and insecurity as multifaceted phenomena;
offer an introduction to an often-misunderstood continent, whose issues and prospects go beyond war, coups and poverty, and whose internal developments shape and are shaped by many other actors (including foreign powers, international organizations);
introduce students to regional approaches to security and analyse key challenges that are expected to grow in the next decades;
understand and integrate concepts and methods from relevant disciplines in order to gain a deeper understanding of real-life security cases.
Timetable
On the right side of programme front page of the studyguide you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
7 lectures and self-study
Assessment method
Group Mid-Term:
30% of final grade
Grade must be 5.50 or higher
Resit is not possible
Grade can be compensated
Individual Final:
70% of final grade
Grade must be 5.50 or higher
Resit of a fail is possible.
Resit will take the same form
Reading list
The reading list and programme will be made available on Brightspace
Registration
Registration will be done by the administration (OSC).
Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in MyStudymap you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course.
Contact
Tanja Hendriks prd@fgga.leidenuniv.nl