MSc Development and Security

University of Bristol

Centering on the development-security nexus, this programme equips you to trace the links and tensions between efforts to alleviate poverty, build peace and promote stability – showing how choices made in one sphere reverberate across the other. Explore contemporary conflicts and the international community’s responses, asking why wars begin and end, how different actors attempt conflict prevention and peacebuilding, and what happens when security concerns dominate development agendas through core teaching. Situate these empirical questions within wider theoretical debates in development and security studies, critically assessing liberal, critical and post-colonial perspectives, as well as controversies surrounding global governance, humanitarian intervention, and aid conditionality. Interrogate key texts, evaluate evidence, and develop your own positions on the development-security nexus. Learn from up-to-date case studies that connect theory to practice. Whether analysing post-conflict reconstruction, livelihood strategies in fragile states or the securitisation of public health, you will apply conceptual tools to real-world dilemmas and refine the analytical skills valued by governments, international organisations, NGOs and research institutes. Be challenged and inspired by internationally recognised scholars whose expertise keeps classroom discussions at the forefront of current debates. Workshops, guest lectures and student-led seminars foster a diverse, collaborative community in which rigorous analysis and respectful dialogue go hand in hand. Benefit from one-to-one supervision to design and execute a research project that demonstrates your ability to gather and interpret data, apply theory, and communicate findings to the highest academic standard.

Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences