About PCS Concentration

The Peace and Conflict Studies Concentration will be the first educational program in Kyrgyzstan and probably Central Asia that will offer theoretical knowledge and analytical skills in the field of peace and conflict studies. It will be an interdisciplinary concentration based on the courses taught by the existing educational programs in the Division of Social Sciences such as Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, International and Comparative Politics as well as International and Business Law.

Kyrgyzstan is a multicultural developing state with more than 100 ethnic groups, several religious confessions and about ten different languages spoken on its territory. The relationships between those groups are not always peaceful and friendly but sometimes tense and even violent. The interethnic clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 1990 and 2010, frequent border conflicts between the villagers of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, religious tensions between Muslims and other traditional and non-traditional confessions, have resulted in high demand for opening peace studies programs that will train students in the culture of peace and bring about positive changes in the society. Peace and Conflict Studies Concentration will offer the education that can help students master theoretical knowledge and analytical skills to be competitive in the local job market. Government officials and policemen, social workers and teachers trained in traditional national and local educational institutions usually lack the appropriate knowledge and skills to understand cultural, social and political forces that lie behind intergroup and interpersonal conflicts threatening harmony and stability of the society, and fail to respond to the challenges posed by them in a nonviolent and constructive way.