The Conflict Resolution and Governance programme provides students with a theoretical basis for analysing conflicts and the relationship of these conflicts to concerns for democratic governance. The case-oriented approach helps students to develop skills and experience through the analysis of action in settings that are grounded in comparative and historical perspectives. Students gain the ability to apply different theoretical orientations to make sense of the range of global, regional and local influences that shape conflicts and their relationship to governance. The programme’s ambition is to develop students’ capacity to draw on the most vexing features of contemporary conflicts to form governance regimes from the fabric of local crisis.

The programme is composed of three core modules plus an elective, followed by the design and development of an individual thesis based on empirical research. All modules emphasise cases and use them to organise discussions, to develop students’ skills in conflict analysis, in negotiation and conflict resolution, and to link research and practice.

Recent theses have focused on questions like:

• How does the daily work of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ contribute to building a capacity for governance in the post-conflict society of South Sudan?
• How do the routines and practices of Dutch planning and regulatory agencies contribute to conflicts about water management?
• Has the decentralisation of governance contributed to the reduction of inter-ethnic tensions in Kosovo?
• How does the organisation of refugee centres in Switzerland shape the social networks that asylum seekers form?
• Have Dutch development agencies and military units been able to make their commitment to cooperation a reality in reconstruction projects in Afghanistan?
• How can funding agencies evaluate the influence that alternatives to violence programmes have on the individuals who participate? 

The programme is intensive and rigorous and students are expected to develop their capacity to work independently and in group settings.

For students interested in this field of study, we also offer a two-year Research Master’s.

Studying Conflict Resolution and Governance at the University of Amsterdam

The programme takes full advantage of its setting in Amsterdam, a vibrant and cosmopolitan city with long-standing ties to global and local politics and to international development and justice networks.  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 to the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, which is one of the most prestigious institutes of its kind. 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.