Contributor(s): Mr Mark Hoffman | Editor's note: IR422 Conflict and Peace Studies, has been replaced by IR449 (Half Unit) Conflict and Peacebuilding. This course is intended for those interested in theoretical and practical approaches to the question of peace, the problems of conflict and violence, and responses to them particularly in the form of liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding. The course is divided into three unequal but interconnected parts. The first part examines ideas and debates about the causes, contexts, dynamics and characterisations of conflict. The second explores and problematises the nature and meanings of peace and peacebuilding. This leads into the third section which is concerned with a critical engagement with the range of international responses to conflict associated with the discourses and practices of liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding. The seminars explore the nexus between theory and practice. Although the course and its readings are mainly theoretical and conceptual rather than empirical, students are encouraged to apply the ideas to actual cases, past and present.