Teaching

Introduction to the Study of Civil War

This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the literature on civil war, with a focus on recent quantitative work. Starting with a discussion of concepts and definitions, the course proceeds along four major perspectives: (i) country-level studies that compare the occurrence of civil war across countries, (ii) sub-national approaches focusing on groups as conflict actors, (iii) trans-national perspectives dealing with cross-border impacts on civil wars, and (iv) micro-level studies focusing on the dynamics of recruitment and the production of violence in civil wars. It is recommended (but not required) that students have completed an introductory course in quantitative methodology.
Taught at Yale University (2011).

Agent-based Modeling in Political Science

Computational agent-based models (ABM) have become increasingly popular in Political Science. The purpose of an ABM is to simulate the emergence of macro-level social phenomena based on the interaction of individuals. This course provides a comprehensive introduction to ABM, drawing on examples across political science, sociology and economics. Using the free NetLogo software, students learn how to design agent-based simulation models from scratch and evaluate their output. The course starts with a discussion of ABM principles, and proceeds with a step-by-step introduction of essential ABM building blocks and their corresponding implementation in NetLogo. We also cover the integration of empirical data and the automatic execution of multiple simulation ("batch") runs, as well as the integration of ABM with spatial data (GIS). In supervised lab sessions, students develop their own implementation of an ABM. The exercises are based on the simple NetLogo programming language, and no prior experience in programming is required.
Taught at the University of Oslo (2012) and the ECPR Winter School in Methods and Techniques (2012).

The Spatial Analysis of Violent Conflict

This course covers the relationship between geography and violent conflict, both in terms of theoretical foundations and methodological implications. The course is organized in five sections, each covering a particular geographic aspect in the study of political violence (both inter- and intrastate). Each section starts with a theoretical part that provides a discussion of the literature on the respective topic. This is followed by a practical session, where students will be introduced to the tools and techniques to perform the required spatial analysis. The course requires good computational skills and a completed introductory methods training.
Taught at the University of Zurich (2009).

Geographic Information Systems for Conflict Research

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become increasingly widespread in the social sciences. This course introduces students to core GIS concepts and techniques, drawing on examples from civil war research. Topics covered include: maps and projections; data representation in GIS; collection of spatial data; vector operations; zonal statistics and fishnet analyses. The course relies primarily on the ArcGIS software, but also gives a short introduction to spatial data processing in the R statistical toolkit.
Taught at the University of Zurich (2009, short course with Jan Ketil Rød) and the University of Maryland (2011).