Peace Studies Research Group Seminar
Theory and debate on the repoliticisation of Peace and Conflicts Studies

André Barrinha, FEUC

May 3rd, 2010, 15:00, CES Seminar Room, 2nd Floor, Coimbra

Free Entrance

 
Abstract

Since the 1960’s peace and conflict studies have assumed, at least in Europe, a largely questioning dimension as what pertains to the usual theories and explanatory models on the causes and consequences of human violence. Authors such as Johan Galtung have marked a critical position that has passed the borders of conflict analysis, influencing approaches and theories in other fields, for instance Security Studies as developed in Europe in the post-Cold War.

This critical dimension and theoretical weight has, nonetheless come to assume a secondary role in the contemporary analysis of peace and conflicts, much focused on empiricism and a certain immediate normatively. This paper aims to claim the need for a critical re-orientation for Peace and Conflicts Studies which may a) put the theoretical debate in the centre of its disciplinary evolution b) open space towards the embodiment of contributions of fields such as Political Theory and Philosophy and c) reassume its critical dimension in the Framework of the Social Sciences and, in particular, of International Relations.

As immediate contribution towards this theoretical debate, this presentation has yet as aim to introduce the ‘political’ issue as main concept in the comprehension of conflictuality and the possibility of peace. As so, the aim is to incorporate work of authors such as o Hannah Arendt, Carl Schmit and Chantal Mouffe in the definition of a specific contribution towards a better understanding of the political dimension inherent and fundamental to armed conflict.

 
Biographic note

André Barrinha has recently concluded His doctoral degree in International Relations at the University of Kent, having defended a dissertation entitled Politics, Security and the Construction of Protracted Social Conflicts. Also, holds a post-graduate degree in International Politics and Conflict Resolution at the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra, the same institution of which he holds a degree in International Relations. Between 2004 and 2006 was linked to the Institute for Strategic and International Studies, in Lisbon. Among other works, in 2008 published 2008, with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Towards a Global Dimension: EU’s Conflict Management in the Neighborhood and Beyond.

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