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In 2000/01 the Department of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London launched a new MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development.

This pioneering, multi- and inter-disciplinary degree programme has produced generations of students equipped to think through and make some sense of the many varying forms and levels of violent conflict globally and their complex connections to processes and experiences of development. Many of these students have gone on to work in the field internationally and nationally as researchers/academics and policymakers/practitioners. The world has changed since 2000 and patterns of conflict, development, and interventions (peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction, conflict prevention, etc.) have also shifted. 

While in 2000 there was still considerable optimism (over-confidence even) in so-called liberal peacebuilding and in the idea that 'development' was straightforwardly a 'conflict prophylactic', that is no longer the case. New methodologies, a richer research literature and more nuanced foundations for intervention have evolved, along with a loss of confidence in, especially, Western interventionism. Meanwhile, in the past few years the incidence of violence conflict has sharply increased, and there has been an expansion of 'non-state' conflicts as well as 'internationalised internal conflicts'. 

What are the most important changes over this period? What big new ideas have developed and how much more do we know? How do research and practice/policy inform one another? Is the research field generating insights helpful to responding to the new political and economic landscape? What emergent characteristics does the intersection of development and violence/violent conflict have now and what can be said about future trends?

SOAS is convening a half day event to mark 25 years of the MSc Violence, Conflict and Development (VCD) to discuss these issues, and bringing together scholars, current students, alumni, and practitioners. This event will be followed by a drink reception.

Chair 

• Christopher Cramer, Professor of the Political Economy of Development, Department of Development Studies