We will be studying the principles of agent-based modeling and its applications to the social sciences. The course will allow the participants to develop their own applied models. This course builds on the introductory class given SS 04 and WS 04/05. Attendance of that course is not a prerequisite but helpful. Admittance to the current course is limited and only by appointment with the instructor.

The BA Colloquium prepares students for their BA thesis with regard to content, administration, and methodology. During the colloquium, students choose a topic and a supervisor for their thesis. The skills students have acquired during the course of their studies are also enhanced and optimized.

In this seminar staff members of the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) and external guests present and discuss their research.

Introduction to research on political violence in domestic and international politics. This course covers the causes and solutions to different types of political violence including interstate wars, civil wars, terrorism or social protests.

Introduction to research on political violence in domestic and international politics. This course covers the causes and solutions to different types of political violence including interstate wars, civil wars, terrorism or social protests.

Introduction to research on civil wars. This course covers the causes, processes and solutions to civil conflicts and wars.

Introduction to research on civil wars. This course covers the causes, processes and solutions to civil conflicts and wars.

Switzerland in the context of European integrationThe course (lecture and tutorial) deals with the theory, development and central policy areas of European integration as well as the structures and processes of the EU as a political system. The course systematically links this basic knowledge with an analysis of the bilateral relationship between Switzerland and the EU.

This course focuses on agent-based modeling, which is a particular type of computational methodology that allows the researcher to create, analyze, and experiment with, artificial worlds populated by agents that interact in non-trivial ways. In such complex adaptive systems, computation is used to simulate agents’ cognitive processes and behavior in order to explore emergent macro phenomena.

This module defines and contextualises peace mediation in relation to other conflict resolution approaches. The module focuses heavily on conflict analysis, introducing the students to the latest knowledge about conflict typologies, trends, and causes in addition to providing them with various opportunities to practice conflict analysis using diverse methods.

Students learn about the content of peace processes in this module. This module combines various approaches to developing options with an examination of contemporary cases and how various content issues are managed and interlinked. The module focuses on security, power-sharing, justice, socioeconomic and environmental arrangements.

Mediators help the parties reach a peace agreement by designing and structuring the process. This module covers the basic elements of process design and how they differ. Important to process design is the reflection on theory and practice in sequencing the content to be examined. The module then explores the implications and challenges facing the implementation of peace agreements for mediators.

This module seeks to integrate all the knowledge, skills, and techniques from previous modules in a multi-day mediation simulation based on a real-life mediation case. It focuses on linking theory and practice, communicating with actors in conflict, and transferring the programme’s content to a professional environment.

This seminar builds on the MACIS seminar on political violence and covers primarily the quantitative literature on civil and regional wars, especially with respect to the effect of economic and ethnic factors, political institutions and the geographic and international context. The students will develop an original research question to be dealt with in a research paper.

This course offers an introduction to political violence in domestic and international politics. The course covers explanations of interstate wars, theories of civil and ethnic wars and regional conflict. Other topics include new threats, including transnational terrorist networks and other non-state actors, and the relationship between conflict and nation-building and democratization processes.

In this seminar, Ph.D. students, postdocs and professors based at the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) present and discuss the research designs and results of their work.