Ethnic Conflicts (Spring 2022; 2023)
Course Description: This course examines what ethnic conflicts are, why they occur, and how we can resolve them. Two main objectives of this course are 1) to expose students to the substantive issues and research methods in the studies of ethnic conflicts, and 2) to help students write their individual research papers.
Students wrote on the following topics:
2023
- Food security and ethnic conflict
- Religion, language, and ethnic conflict
- The use of nationalism in election campaigns
- Ethnic mobilization strategies
- Electoral systems and ethnic voting in autocracies
- Neutrality in ethnic conflicts
- Ethnic defection in voting
- Media framing, education, and public attitudes toward migration issues
- International interventions and ethnic conflicts
- Ethnic diversity and conflicts
- Ethnic conflicts in Myanmar
- Polarization and nationalism
- Pandemic nationalism
- Irredentism
2022
- The causes and outcomes of ethnic rivalries (Iraq, South Africa, Peru, Colombia, the US)
- The causes and outcomes of ethnic voting in the US (income inequality, geography, democracy)
- The implications of the government's policy on ethnic relations (Cameroon)
- Russia-Ukraine war
- The effects of democracy on the survivability of rebels
- Sports and nationalism
- Immigration and terrorism
- Modernization and nationalism in post-colonial Africa