2019-2020 Academic Catalog 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

PSCI 096 - Just and Unjust Wars


 

This first-year seminar examines significant questions such as - why states and societies go to war, whether doing so is ever justified, and what (if anything) might make it so.  Students will be afforded the opportunity to explore a range of historical and contemporary armed conflicts through the lens of the political, moral, ethical, and legal criteria which constitute the basis of the ‘laws of war’ as well as the international conventions and norms derived from them.  Particular attention will be paid to the dilemmas associated with the decision to go to war, conduct during war, and war’s aftermath.  Students will engage with these and related dilemmas through consideration of specific examples including (but not limited to) preemptive war, wars of self-defense, humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping and peace operations, terrorism and wars of national liberation, the status of non-combatants and non-state actors, and the rebuilding of post-conflict societies.

Course Designation/Attribute: VP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically