WORKSHOP: New Horizons in Conflict System Analysis: Applications to the Middle East, Fall, 2010.

University South Carolina Research Foundation, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

It goes without saying that the Middle East conflict system is one of the world's most important and intractable problem areas, with consequences that ripple across the global system. At a time when academics in political science have been advocating multi-method research approaches that are strongly rooted in theory, this workshop brings together a variety of political science and social science approaches to social conflict and political conflict to examine the ongoing conflict system of the Middle East. The workshop melds together academic approaches, methods and findings with policy oriented needs. It brings together conflict scholars, primarily from political science, applying a range of advanced, rigorous analytic and data gathering techniques, to address the single empirical domain of the contemporary Middle East conflict system. This multidisciplinary workshop demonstrates the complementarity between formal approaches and various empirical mtehods, and also notes the relevance of scholarly research to policy questions. With regards to broader impacts, the results of the workshop will be of interest to policy makers dealing with conflict situations. In addition, a number of graduate students are invited to the workshop. They will have an opportunity to interact with the other participants as well as observe the development and use of multidisciplinary and multi-method approaches. It is hoped that these experiences will influence their later work.