PLSC 290NComparative Violence: Political and Criminological Perspectives

3 credits · Political Science · Penn State

This course will cater to the interests of anyone who has ever asked oneself: what are the origins of individual and mass violence and why some parts of the world or one's own country have more of it than others? This course is designed to critically approach this question, based on the broad, cross-disciplinary perspective of security research and new security studies. This course will enable students to understand the distinctions and overlaps between political and criminal violence, analyze the levels from individual to mass violent behaviors, and assess theoretical approaches to studying violence. Students will engage in comparative exploration of different disciplinary perspectives on the origins and types of violent behaviors, including political science, criminal justice, international relations, and others. The course will provide the critical basis (theoretical and empirical) for students to evaluate the puzzle from multiple angles.