MPCT303-1: Historical perspectives on war and peace

Course leader: Professor Jens Petter Nielsen, Department of History.

Duration: 10 hours (5 lectures)

Course 1 addresses the approaches to the causes of war and conditions of peace in historical research, through a selection of cases from various regions:

Africa: The war between Eritrea and Ethiopia will be presented to illustrate the general problems in Africa surrounding the consequences of European colonisation and decolonisation, lack of ethnic integration and the struggle over resources.

Europe: Imperialism, the European state system and the causes of World War I. Fascism and the causes of World War II. European integration after 1945: A peace building project?

The Circumpolar Area: Conflict and conflict resolution before and after 1917. The Cold War in the north. Norwegian security policy vis à vis Russia before and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Barents Region.


Reading list:

1) Joseph S Nye, Jr., Understanding International Conflicts. An Introduction to Theory and History. Third Edition. Longman 2000, chap. 2-5: pp.30-146.

* 2) Olav Riste, Norway's Foreign Relations. A History. Universitetsforlaget 2001: chap. 10: pp. 206-34

* 3) Ola Tunander, Inventing the Barents Region: Overcoming the East-West Divide, in Olav Schram Stokke and Ola Tunander, The Barents Region
Cooperation in Arctic Europe. Sage 1994: pp. 31-44.

* 4) Jens Petter Nielsen, "The Barents Region in Historical Perspective",in Olav Schram Stokke and Ola Tunander, The Barents Region. Cooperation in Arctic Europe. Sage 1994: pp. 87-100.

5) Tekeste Negash & Kjetil Tronvoll: Brothers at War Making Sense of the Eritrean- Ethiopian War, James Currey Press 2000 ca 150 pages

Total ca. 321 pages