The Centre for the Study of Divided Societies was created in 2009 to provide a global focal point for teaching and research on ethno-national problems that divide and unite societies across the modern world.
Its main activities are:
- The MA Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies (full-time and part-time)
- Research and publications on conflict resolution in deeply divided societies
- Conferences and public events on conflict resolution in deeply divided societies
Research programme
The Centre for the Study of Divided Societies makes a significant contribution to public debate and the dissemination of ideas on a range of problems facing world leaders in the 21st Century. Its primary focus is to understand what factors within societies generate or disrupt peace and social harmony and what constitutional, social and economic mechanisms of conflict resolution are most suitable over the long-term.
A unique inter-disciplinary centre of academic excellence, it brings together social scientists, historians, policy makers and practitioners who conduct research on societal divisions – expressed both violently and non-violently – within divided cities, states or regions. It serves as a platform and flagship for the development of scholarly enterprises by leading researchers seeking to further knowledge on ethno-national conflict regulation, peace processes, third party mediation, and truth and reconciliation processes.
Our MA in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies is affiliated to the Centre and offers a multidisciplinary, comparative study of national, ethnic and religious conflicts in deeply divided societies. It compares case studies from the Middle East and around the world, examining the theoretical literature on the causes and consequences of conflict, conflict regulation, and internationally led and grassroots peace processes. For further information on our MA programme, please see the online prospectus.
The Centre for the Study of Divided Societies also offers study and research into conflict resolution towards an MPhil/PhD. Staff research interests cover forms of power-sharing in deeply divided societies, peace processes and ethnic conflict resolution, the politics of memory, religion and identity, urban geopolitics and Islamist movements.
Publications
The Centre has a long record of publishing and we normally publish the proceedings of conferences as an edited volume. We have two book series affiliated with the Centre:
- Urban Conflict, Divided Societies (eds. Craig Larkin and Michael Kerr, OUP/Hurst)
- Religion and its Others: Studies in Religion, Nonreligion and Secularity (eds. Stacey Gutkowski, Lois Lee and Johannes Quack, DeGruyter)
Key publications include:
- Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin (Eds.) The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant. (Hurst/OUP, 2015) Arabic Translated Edition (2021).
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Secular Feelings, Settler Feelings: The Case of Palestine/Israel, Religion, State and Society, 49(2), 2021.
- Craig Larkin & Mansour Nasasra, The “inclusion-moderation” illusion: re-framing the Islamic movement inside Israel, Democratization (2021)
- Craig Larkin, Ethnic Identity, Memory, and Sites of Violence, in Armando Salvatore, Sari Hanafi, and Kieko Obuse (Eds.)The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2020)
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Religion, War and Israel’s Secular Millennials: Being Reasonable? Manchester University Press, 2020.
- O’Connor, Karl, Craig Larkin, Mansour Nasasra, and Kelsey Shanks, School choice and conflict narratives: representative bureaucracy at the street level in East Jerusalem, Administration & Society 52, no. 4 (2020): 528-565.
- 2020 “Foreign Sponsorship of Pro-Government Militias Fighting Syria’s Insurgency: Whither Proxy Wars?” (co-authored with Antonio Giustozzi), Mediterranean Politics, 24 November 2020 (published before print), 30 pp. (peer reviewed journal article),
- 2020 “Timebomb at the Port: How Institutional Failure, Political Squabbling and Greed Set the Stage for Blowing up Beirut,” Arab Reform Initiative, 16 September 2020, (other academic works)
- Gutkowski, Stacey, Craig Larkin and Ana Maria Daou, Religious Pluralism, Interfaith Dialogue and Post-war Lebanon in Jan-Jonathan Bock, John Fahy and Sami Everett (eds.) Emergent Religious Pluralisms (Palgrave, 2019), 95-122.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Jewish atheists in foxholes: existential beliefs and how war feels, Secular Studies, 1(1), 2019, 34-73.
- Craig Larkin & Ella Parry-Davies. War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 25.1 (2019): 78-96.
- Gutkowski, Stacey, Craig Larkin and Ana Maria Daou, Religious Pluralism, Interfaith Dialogue and Post-war Lebanon in Jan-Jonathan Bock, John Fahy and Sami Everett (eds.) Emergent Religious Pluralisms (Palgrave, 2019).
- O'Connor, K., Larkin, C., Nasasra, M., & Shanks, K. “School choice and conflict narratives: representative bureaucracy at the street level in East Jerusalem.” Administration and Society (2019): 1-38.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Love, war and secular “reasonableness” among hilonim in Israel-Palestine, in Monique Scheer, Nadia Fadil and Birgitte Schepeleren Johansen (eds.) Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions: European Configurations, (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
- Larkin, Craig, and Ella Parry-Davies. "War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance." Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 25.1 (2019): 78-96.
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2019 “Spoils of Oil? Assessing and Mitigating the Risks of Corruption in Lebanon’s Emerging Offshore Petroleum Sector,” in: Sami Atallah and Bassam Fattouh (eds), The Future of Petroleum in Lebanon. Energy, Politics and Economic Growth, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019). (Peer reviewed book chapter).
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2018 “Humanitarianism, State Sovereignty and Authoritarian Regime Maintenance in the Syrian War,” Political Science Quarterly (co-authored with Kholoud Mansour, peer reviewed journal article)
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2017 “Outsourcing State Violence: The National Defence Force, ‘Stateness’, and Regime Resilience in the Syrian War,” Mediterranean Politics (Peer reviewed journal article) (with Antonio Giustozzi).
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2016 “Arab Regimes’ International Linkages and Authoritarian Learning: Toward an Ethnography of Counter-Revolutionary Bricolage,” Memo prepared for workshop “International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes,” GIGA, Hamburg, 8-9 June. Project on Middle East Political Science (George Washington University). (other academic works)
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2016 “Master Frames of the Syrian Conflict: Early Violence and Sectarian Response Revisited,” Memo prepared for workshop “From Mobilization to Counter-Revolution: The Arab Spring in Comparative Perspective,” Oxford University, 4 May 2016. Project on Middle East Political Science (George Washington University).(other academic works)
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2016 “The First Time as Tragedy, The Second as Farce? Lebanon’s Nascent Petroleum Sector and the Risks of Corruption,” Mediterranean Politics, 5 January 2016. (peer reviewed journal article)
- Gutkowski, Stacey. We are the very model of a moderate Muslim state? The Amman Messages and Jordan’s Foreign Policy, International Relations, 30(2), 2016, 206-226.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. “Secularism, security and war.” in Religion: Beyond Religion, Phil Zuckerman (ed.), Cengage, 2016.
- 2015 “Repression is Not a ‘Stupid Thing’ – Syrian Regime Responses to the Syrian Crisis,” in: Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin (eds), The ‘Alawis of Syria – War, Faith and Politics in the Levant, (Hurst Publishers, Oxford University Press U.S.) (peer reviewed book chapter)
- Craig Larkin & Olivia Midha, The Alawis of Tripoli: identity, violence and urban geopolitics, in Kerr and Larkin (Eds.), The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant (Hurst/OUP, 2015), 181-203.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Vernacular security in the Eastern Mediterranean after the Arab Spring: the cases of Egypt and Jordan. The Eastern Mediterranean in Transition: Multipolarity, Politics and Power, 147-160, Aristotle Tziampiris and Spyridon N. Litsas (eds), Ashgate 2015.
- Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin, The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant. Hurst/OUP, 2015
- Gutkowski, Stacey. “Vernacular security in the Eastern Mediterranean after the Arab Spring: the cases of Egypt and Jordan” in The Eastern Mediterranean in Transition: Multipolarity, Politics and Power, Aristotle Tziampiris and Spyridon N. Litsas (eds), Ashgate, 2015.
Activities
Shattered by Terror: Rebuilding Social Confidence in post-ISIS Mosul with Omar Mohammed (Mosuleye)
In this webinar Omar Mohammed (Mosuleye) explores Daesh's (ISIS) destructive legacy in Mosul and the challenge of reconstructing communal trust and confidence in contemporary Iraq.
Publications
The Centre has a long record of publishing and we normally publish the proceedings of conferences as an edited volume. We have two book series affiliated with the Centre:
- Urban Conflict, Divided Societies (eds. Craig Larkin and Michael Kerr, OUP/Hurst)
- Religion and its Others: Studies in Religion, Nonreligion and Secularity (eds. Stacey Gutkowski, Lois Lee and Johannes Quack, DeGruyter)
Key publications include:
- Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin (Eds.) The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant. (Hurst/OUP, 2015) Arabic Translated Edition (2021).
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Secular Feelings, Settler Feelings: The Case of Palestine/Israel, Religion, State and Society, 49(2), 2021.
- Craig Larkin & Mansour Nasasra, The “inclusion-moderation” illusion: re-framing the Islamic movement inside Israel, Democratization (2021)
- Craig Larkin, Ethnic Identity, Memory, and Sites of Violence, in Armando Salvatore, Sari Hanafi, and Kieko Obuse (Eds.)The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2020)
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Religion, War and Israel’s Secular Millennials: Being Reasonable? Manchester University Press, 2020.
- O’Connor, Karl, Craig Larkin, Mansour Nasasra, and Kelsey Shanks, School choice and conflict narratives: representative bureaucracy at the street level in East Jerusalem, Administration & Society 52, no. 4 (2020): 528-565.
- 2020 “Foreign Sponsorship of Pro-Government Militias Fighting Syria’s Insurgency: Whither Proxy Wars?” (co-authored with Antonio Giustozzi), Mediterranean Politics, 24 November 2020 (published before print), 30 pp. (peer reviewed journal article),
- 2020 “Timebomb at the Port: How Institutional Failure, Political Squabbling and Greed Set the Stage for Blowing up Beirut,” Arab Reform Initiative, 16 September 2020, (other academic works)
- Gutkowski, Stacey, Craig Larkin and Ana Maria Daou, Religious Pluralism, Interfaith Dialogue and Post-war Lebanon in Jan-Jonathan Bock, John Fahy and Sami Everett (eds.) Emergent Religious Pluralisms (Palgrave, 2019), 95-122.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Jewish atheists in foxholes: existential beliefs and how war feels, Secular Studies, 1(1), 2019, 34-73.
- Craig Larkin & Ella Parry-Davies. War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 25.1 (2019): 78-96.
- Gutkowski, Stacey, Craig Larkin and Ana Maria Daou, Religious Pluralism, Interfaith Dialogue and Post-war Lebanon in Jan-Jonathan Bock, John Fahy and Sami Everett (eds.) Emergent Religious Pluralisms (Palgrave, 2019).
- O'Connor, K., Larkin, C., Nasasra, M., & Shanks, K. “School choice and conflict narratives: representative bureaucracy at the street level in East Jerusalem.” Administration and Society (2019): 1-38.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Love, war and secular “reasonableness” among hilonim in Israel-Palestine, in Monique Scheer, Nadia Fadil and Birgitte Schepeleren Johansen (eds.) Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions: European Configurations, (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
- Larkin, Craig, and Ella Parry-Davies. "War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance." Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 25.1 (2019): 78-96.
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2019 “Spoils of Oil? Assessing and Mitigating the Risks of Corruption in Lebanon’s Emerging Offshore Petroleum Sector,” in: Sami Atallah and Bassam Fattouh (eds), The Future of Petroleum in Lebanon. Energy, Politics and Economic Growth, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2019). (Peer reviewed book chapter).
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2018 “Humanitarianism, State Sovereignty and Authoritarian Regime Maintenance in the Syrian War,” Political Science Quarterly (co-authored with Kholoud Mansour, peer reviewed journal article)
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2017 “Outsourcing State Violence: The National Defence Force, ‘Stateness’, and Regime Resilience in the Syrian War,” Mediterranean Politics (Peer reviewed journal article) (with Antonio Giustozzi).
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2016 “Arab Regimes’ International Linkages and Authoritarian Learning: Toward an Ethnography of Counter-Revolutionary Bricolage,” Memo prepared for workshop “International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes,” GIGA, Hamburg, 8-9 June. Project on Middle East Political Science (George Washington University). (other academic works)
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2016 “Master Frames of the Syrian Conflict: Early Violence and Sectarian Response Revisited,” Memo prepared for workshop “From Mobilization to Counter-Revolution: The Arab Spring in Comparative Perspective,” Oxford University, 4 May 2016. Project on Middle East Political Science (George Washington University).(other academic works)
- Leenders, Reinoud, 2016 “The First Time as Tragedy, The Second as Farce? Lebanon’s Nascent Petroleum Sector and the Risks of Corruption,” Mediterranean Politics, 5 January 2016. (peer reviewed journal article)
- Gutkowski, Stacey. We are the very model of a moderate Muslim state? The Amman Messages and Jordan’s Foreign Policy, International Relations, 30(2), 2016, 206-226.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. “Secularism, security and war.” in Religion: Beyond Religion, Phil Zuckerman (ed.), Cengage, 2016.
- 2015 “Repression is Not a ‘Stupid Thing’ – Syrian Regime Responses to the Syrian Crisis,” in: Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin (eds), The ‘Alawis of Syria – War, Faith and Politics in the Levant, (Hurst Publishers, Oxford University Press U.S.) (peer reviewed book chapter)
- Craig Larkin & Olivia Midha, The Alawis of Tripoli: identity, violence and urban geopolitics, in Kerr and Larkin (Eds.), The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant (Hurst/OUP, 2015), 181-203.
- Gutkowski, Stacey. Vernacular security in the Eastern Mediterranean after the Arab Spring: the cases of Egypt and Jordan. The Eastern Mediterranean in Transition: Multipolarity, Politics and Power, 147-160, Aristotle Tziampiris and Spyridon N. Litsas (eds), Ashgate 2015.
- Michael Kerr and Craig Larkin, The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant. Hurst/OUP, 2015
- Gutkowski, Stacey. “Vernacular security in the Eastern Mediterranean after the Arab Spring: the cases of Egypt and Jordan” in The Eastern Mediterranean in Transition: Multipolarity, Politics and Power, Aristotle Tziampiris and Spyridon N. Litsas (eds), Ashgate, 2015.
Activities
Shattered by Terror: Rebuilding Social Confidence in post-ISIS Mosul with Omar Mohammed (Mosuleye)
In this webinar Omar Mohammed (Mosuleye) explores Daesh's (ISIS) destructive legacy in Mosul and the challenge of reconstructing communal trust and confidence in contemporary Iraq.
Group leads
Craig Larkin
Reader in Middle East Politics and Peace and Conflict Studies
Stacey Gutkowski
Reader in Peace and Conflict Studies