MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security
Queen's University Belfast - Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Key Information
Campus location
Belfast, United Kingdom
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
1 - 3 year
Pace
Full time, Part time
Tuition fees
GBP 19,100 / per year *
Application deadline
Request info
Earliest start date
Sep 2024
* Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland: £6,980 | England, Scotland or Wales: £8360 | EU Other and International: £19,100
Introduction
Political violence, terrorism, and civil conflict have seriously affected the lives of millions of people around the world. Moreover, the legacy of 9/11, the rise of groups like ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the emergence of far-right groups in the West have brought questions about the nature, evolution, causes, and consequences of non-state political violence to the forefront of academic, policymaking, media, and popular debates. Similarly, security responses to these challenges feature prominently in global politics. Governments pursue security strategies to preserve order and protect their citizens. Yet many governments also participate in conflict and political violence by holding onto power and preserving systemic injustices.
The MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security at Queen’s University Belfast provides you with the tools to understand and critically engage with these issues. It equips you with the foundations and the most up-to-date research and methodologies in the fields of terrorism studies, security studies and conflict analysis. This programme helps students develop a critical and analytical approach to the study of the use of political violence and terrorism in history and the contemporary world. The MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security also challenges accepted wisdom and opens debate about the role of violence in relation to political power in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It assesses state responses to the threat of terrorism and the challenge to security.
This programme provides you with the essential transferable skills and in-depth knowledge of theories and issues in the areas of violence, security, and terrorism for career development at any stage, from students straight from an undergraduate degree with limited to no prior professional experience to those seeking continued professional development. This programme enables you to broaden your horizons, providing you with a competitive edge in a global graduate market in a wide variety of areas such as the security sector, including intelligence agencies, government agencies and public office, the military, NGOs, academia, businesses and corporations, and the media among many other possibilities.
Violence, Terrorism And Security Highlights
This programme offers a unique opportunity to develop your knowledge, understanding, transferable skills and critical engagement with central issues in the study of political violence and terrorism as well as state responses to these challenges.
Global Opportunities
Located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, we offer a unique opportunity for our students to access and engage with a community context previously challenged by violence, terrorism, and security as part of the programme of study. Our students have the opportunity to live and study in a post-conflict environment with access to guest lecturers who were involved in the Northern Irish conflict peace process, including researchers, policymakers to ex-combatants.
Career Development
The programme provides you with a competitive edge in a global graduate market in a wide variety of areas such as the security sector, including intelligence agencies, government agencies and public office, the military, NGOs, academia, businesses and corporations, and the media.
We have a world-class Graduate School. The Graduate School provides an exclusive postgraduate hub that values the needs of our students. Queen’s was ranked 3rd out of 199 universities worldwide and 2nd out of 44 UK universities for our Graduate School.
Internationally Renowned Experts
Our teaching staff have global standing as experts in their field. They regularly interface with policymakers, state governments, and sectoral actors, giving expert advice and expertise to the field. We also have excellent links to our Research Institutes, such as the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. Queen’s is ranked in the top 75 universities in Europe for Teaching Excellent (Times Higher Education, 2019). Politics was ranked joint 1st in the UK for Research Intensity (Complete University Guide, 2021). Queen’s is ranked 14th in the UK for research quality (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020).
Student Experience
Located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, we offer a unique opportunity for our students to access and engage with a community context previously challenged by violence, terrorism and security as part of the programme of study. Our students have the opportunity to live and study in a post-conflict environment. We also hold numerous events and guest lecturers who were involved in the Northern Irish conflict and the peace process, including researchers, policymakers to ex-combatants. We offer an optional extra-curricular custom-designed field visit to Brussels organised by our partners in the Leuven Institute, where students engage with counterterrorism experts, security practitioners in NATO, EU Commission and various NGOs. This optional extra is subsidised but will incur some additional costs. Our programme attracts international award holders of the highest calibre, including Marshall and Mitchell scholars. Study with like-minded students from various backgrounds in VTS. Some of our students have previous experience in the United Nations, national police forces, and military, among many others, before coming to study with us. Study with like-minded students from various backgrounds.
Gallery
Admissions
Curriculum
The Master’s degree (MA) in Violence, Terrorism and Security is awarded to students who successfully complete six core taught modules/classes and the MA dissertation.
Course Structure
Students take 6 modules across 2 semesters. Students take 3 required core modules in the Autumn semester. Then students take 1 required core module and 2 elective modules in the Spring semester. Students complete a dissertation of no more than 15,000 words over the summer semester.
Semester One (Autumn)
Core Modules
- PAI7028 - Violence, Terrorism and Security
- HAP7001 - Approaches to Research Design
- PAI7051 - Contemporary Security
Semester Two (Spring)
Core Modules
- One core module: PAI7007 - Global Terrorism
Elective
Elective modules offer the chance to specialise in a particular area of interest, build on foundational knowledge, and develop focused expertise. Students must take two modules from the following list:
- PAI7027 - Conflict Intervention
- PAI7030 - International Political Economy
- PAI7032 - Gender, Politics and Democracy
- PHL7038 - Philosophy of Conflict and War
- PAI7050 - Ethnic Conflict and Consensus: The Power of Institutions
- PAI7036 - The Politics and Political Economy of Energy and Low Carbon Energy Transitions
- PAI7058 - From Cold War to Cold Peace: The Transformation of the International Order (1979-1999)
- ANT7023 - Anthropology of Conflict
- CSJ7008 - Conflict Mediation
- LAW7815 - Counterterrorism and Human Rights
- LAW7816 - Comparative Human Rights
* Please note that this is an indication of the available elective modules in MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security. There may be other modules available to take, and in some years, one or two of these may not be available (due to staff sabbatical, etc.).
Summer - Dissertation
Over the summer term, students complete a 15,000-word MA dissertation
Some recent MA VTS dissertation topics have included:
- ISIS and discourses of violence
- Gender, agency, and terrorism
- UK counterterrorism policy
- Counterinsurgency and targeted assassinations
- Covert Intelligence and Collusion
- Cultures of Youth Violence
- Cyber-terrorism
- Gender and counterterrorism
- Light arms proliferation
- NATO expansion and Ukraine
- New Terrorism and ISIS
- Paramilitary recruitment
- Policing Private Military Companies and Africa
- Radicalisation and Recruitment
- Religious Diplomacy and Paramilitary movements
- Security and Development
- Security Sector Reform
- State power and the intelligence community
- Taliban, counterinsurgency, and narco-terrorism
- Transitions from terrorism: ETA and the IRA compared
- UK Government PREVENT policy
- US Counter-terrorism strategies
- US Domestic Terrorism
Supplementary Information
Additional information about the content of some of our core modules:
- PAI 7028 Violence, Terrorism, and Security (Autumn semester requirement): The concepts that are at the heart of this core module, "violence", "terrorism", and "security", can each have different meanings across time and at various political levels. There are also multiple approaches and ways to examine these phenomena. The central goals of this module are to provide an introduction to the various sets of literature in these areas and provide a grounding for the MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security. More specifically, this class will familiarize students with different concepts, approaches, and methods to the study of political violence, terrorism, low-intensity conflict, civil war, and security, among others. It is designed to provide an overview of these very important issues.
- PAI7051 Contemporary Security (Autumn semester requirement): In this module, we will explore a range of contemporary issues and practices in international security politics. We will be drawing on both theoretical and empirical material to engage the shifting politics of security. This module address both ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ contemporary security issues and the ways in which these are increasingly connected in both theory and practice. Moreover, it will introduce students to the inter-disciplinary nature of engagements with security (from politics to geography to technology). Students will be introduced to the core concepts and differences between ‘traditional’ rationalist theories of security and the emergence and development of various critical studies in security. They will be offered tools to examine key contemporary issues in security that may include: sovereignty; uncertainty, the security dilemma and risk; non-proliferation and disarmament; war; migration and borders; surveillance and security; environmental security; poverty, food, and human security; gender and security; racism; among others. Students will therefore engage critically with the intersections of theory and practice, domestic and international, and state and human securities, and be able to understand contemporary transformations of security in relation to power, sovereignty, mobilities, and technology.
- HAP7001 Research Design (Autumn semester requirement): Research design is often equated with the term ‘methodology’. While often presented in complex ways, the importance of this can be put simply. Research design and methodology are about structuring your research in such a way that fellow academic researchers can have confidence in your findings. All researchers should therefore be able to tell and, where necessary, justify to their peers how they approached their research, how they set up the question of interest, and how they actually went about researching the topic and collecting the material which they will analyse. This module, therefore, has two key purposes. First, it addresses fundamental issues such as the source of social scientific knowledge, the relation between scholarly research and social progress, and the possibility of eliminating bias in political analysis, both through a study of the philosophy of science and research and through case studies of research in practice. Second, it develops students’ skills in research design through an examination of selected qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.
- PAI 7007 Global Terrorism (Spring semester requirement): This module provides an advanced, multidisciplinary introduction to the phenomenon of terrorism and its study. We begin by engaging with the conceptual, ethical and political challenges associated with the idea of terrorism and consider how these lead to alternative forms of research, explanation and analysis. Specifically, we look at the 'essentially contested' character of terrorism as a concept, then familiarise ourselves with the terms of that contestation with particular reference to the historical development of terrorism as a tactic; media and communication; the role of the state and state-society relations; and the politics of counterterrorism. Throughout, we take a global view of our subject, situating patterns and perceptions of political violence within global and transnational processes. In doing so, we create opportunities to better understand their development and interrogate the role of cultural and social differences, particularly in reference to colonial legacies, 'Lone Actor' attacks, 'Suicide Terrorism', the evolution of transnational Islamic militancy and the resurgence of extreme right-wing violence. The course ends by looking at the Northern Irish Troubles and the Peace Process from the perspective of recent research on how terror campaigns end.
Program Tuition Fee
Career Opportunities
The MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security provides you with the essential transferable skills and in-depth knowledge of theories and issues in the areas of violence, security, and terrorism for career development at any stage, from students straight from an undergraduate degree with limited to no prior professional experience to those seeking continued professional development. Our programme enables you to broaden your horizons, providing you with a competitive edge in a global graduate market in a wide variety of areas such as the security sector, including intelligence agencies, government agencies and public office, the military, NGOs, academia, businesses and corporations, and the media among many other possibilities.
Some of our graduates now serve in the most senior ranks of a number of National Police Services, and Law Enforcement Agencies, Border and Immigration Control, National Armed Forces, including the US Army, US Air Force, British Army and Irish Defence Forces. Graduates also work as senior government policy advisers in international NGOs and in the media.
Queen’s is ranked in the top 140 in the world for graduate prospects (QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2020).
Degree plus award for extra-curricular skills
In addition to your degree programme, at Queen's, you can have the opportunity to gain wider life, academic and employability skills. For example, placements, voluntary work, clubs, societies, sports and lots more. So not only do you graduate with a degree recognised from a world-leading university, you'll have practical national and international experience plus a wider exposure to life overall. We call this Degree Plus. It's what makes studying at Queen's University Belfast special.