Democratization, Development and Conflict Research group at ISS

Central within current debates of international relations are concepts like democracy, poverty and armed conflict. Although all these issues have been of interest for some time now, and in particular since the end of the Cold War, the linkages between the three variables and in particular possible reciprocal relationships have only quite recently become ‘high politics’, hitting high on the agenda not only of the United Nations but even the World Bank as well as the Bush administration.

The research group ‘Democratization, Development and Conflict’ are concerned with these issues investigating prerequisites and consequences of democracy, economic growth, resource abundance, and causes and effects of internal conflicts in general, and the cultural dimension to them in particular. Finally, it is interested in how all of these factors contribute to each other allowing for a wider definition of security and freedom.

The research group has close collaboration with CSCW headed by Professor Scott Gates who also is Professor II at ISS. In addition, the head of the working-groups of CSCW titled ‘Environmental factors in Civil War’ Professor Nils Petter Gleditsch is also Professor II at ISS, and Professor Ola Listhaug here at ISS, is also head of the CSCW-working-group ‘Values and Violence’. For more information of the CSCW see http://www.prio.no/page/CSCW/PRIO_menu_buttons/9195/9220

The research group teaches two courses at the department that are directly tied up two the research interests of the group SVPOL3502: ‘The Causes of War’, and SVPOL3503: ‘International Political Economy’.

Every second week (sometimes once a week) the research group meet for the VIP-seminar. (VIP stands for Violence, Instability and Peace). This seminar includes permanent staff, Ph.Ds and Masterstudents. In addition, international scholars within the fields of interest has from time to time presented their work at the VIP seminar. As such the VIP-seminar works as a source of recruitment of younger scholars, as well as a network of researchers.