Document Type

Graduate Syllabus

Date

Spring 2025

School

Diplomacy

Course Number

DIPL 6715/2125

Course Description

The course will explore the theory and practice of rebuilding institutions to strengthen societies that have undergone conflict and assess strengths and shortcomings of varied interventions with a focus on Sierra Leone. Our study tour explores how over twenty years since a brutal civil war, Sierra Leone has become a model for successful post-war recovery and development using liberal peacebuilding approaches. We will interrogate the role of international actors in rebuilding and supporting institutions of postconflict governance including security and justice sector reform, the education sector, the media, and civil society. At the same time, the course will raise questions around these externally driven approaches, as we also examine the role of domestic actors in navigating 21st-century challenges, including contested elections in 2023, increasing ethno-regional polarization, pandemic disease (the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and more recently, Covid-19), and efforts to promote economic development.

During the study tour, we will hear from State and non-State actors including members of parliament, government ministers, diplomats, prominent international and national non-governmental organization personnel and leading local civil society activists among others, about the work they are doing in promoting democracy and development. Students will also meet with and exchange ideas with their peers as they attend development and diplomacy classes at Fourah Bay College, the first western-style university in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition. through excursions. students will deepen their understanding of Sierra Leone culture. This includes visiting Banana Island, a former slave outpost, traveling into rural communities to experience community-driven development efforts as well as opportunities to visit Sierra Leone's famed beaches and learn about the impact of climate change in maritime communities.

Course discussion and reading material cover topics like gender equity, decolonization, democratization and development, among other topics. There will also be a service learning component: students will work with a local civil society organization (CSO) and co-create an intervention with the organization. supporting them in an identified need as part of course assignments. We will focus on gender in particular, given that this is one area in which Sierra Leone has made considerable progress. We will assess the various steps taken to understand how the various initiatives are yielding fruit in the country.

Through our travel in Sierra Leone, we examine the integral role that institutions in Sierra Leone play in ensuring the day-to-day stability of a post-conflict society, with an aim to understanding not only how a contentious past impacts how post-conflict societies function but also to look into various social practices and initiatives of counteracting the negative effects of conflict through justice, economic development, good governance and education.

This is a three-credit hour course. We will have five meetings before the trip to discuss the readings and logistical arrangements. In our first meeting, we will focus on mutual introductions. You will be expected to explore the syllabus, the Canvas online platform and course requirements. You are also expected to purchase/access your books and to begin reading in preparation for our subsequent discussions. During our subsequent meetings, students will present on chapters from our main text. Final logistical preparations will be discussed at our fifth meeting.

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