Summer School ‘War, Peace and the World Order’
This first edition of the Summer School ‘War, Peace and the World Order’ is organized by Scuola Normale Superiore in cooperation with National PhD Programme in Peace Studies, coordinated by Sapienza Università di Roma and RUNIPACE, Rete delle università italiane per la pace.
The Summer School is funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) through the MERITA, the network for talent project*.
The course, with no participation fees, will take place from September 29 to October 3, 2025, at the Scuola Normale Superiore, located in Palazzo Strozzi, Florence.
The program will be conducted in English and is open to a maximum of 50 participants. It is designed for Master’s and PhD students, researchers, practitioners from NGOs and international organizations, civil society actors, activists, and policymakers.
The course intersects political economy, international relations and social movements, and is aimed at fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue and reflection. Its sessions explore the causes, dynamics and effects of contemporary armed conflicts and examine alternative strategies for peace construction, including ‘from below’, conflict prevention and resolution. Particular attention will be dedicated to ongoing conflict and warfare scenarios. Over the course of five days, senior scholars and practitioners will lead lectures, case-study discussions, and interactive sessions on key war and peace global challenges. Attendees will have ample opportunities to showcase their research and interests and discuss them with SNS scholars and with distinguished invited senior speakers.
Day 1 introduces the global context of war through a discussion of the world system, capitalism, hegemony, and dynamics of international (dis)armament, culminating in a discussion on the Russia–Ukraine war and its implications for Europe and the world.
Day 2 focuses on the politics of war and peace, with sessions on patterns of conflict, critiques of international interventions, and an in-depth discussion on the global architecture of injustice in Palestine.
Day 3 turns to international law and environmental conflicts, addressing the ethics of war in the morning session, the environmental dimensions of conflict with a focus on African contexts, while in the afternoon it offers a space for participants’ presentations and thematic group discussions.
Day 4 explores the political economy of war, including the military-industrial complex, European and Italian defense programs, and the implications of digital technologies and artificial intelligence for contemporary warfare.
Finally, Day 5 centers on peace-making, with a focus on transnational solidarity mobilizations, grassroots peace initiatives, and a concluding session in Italian on the history and current trajectories of pacifism and peace movements in Europe and Italy.
Among the featured guest speakers are Francesca Albanese (UN Special Rapporteur, online), László Andor (FEPS, Brussels), Mats Berdal (King’s College London), Paola Caridi (scholar and author), Raul Caruso (Università Cattolica di Milano), Luciana Castellina (former MEP), Futura D’Aprile (Scuola Normale Superiore), Donatella della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore), Matthew Evangelista (Cornell University), Anna Foa (Sapienza University of Rome), Mauro Garofalo (Comunità di Sant’Egidio), Dario Guarascio (Sapienza University of Rome), Volodymyr Ishchenko (Freie Universität Berlin), Mario Pianta (Scuola Normale Superiore), Luca Raineri (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna), Margareta Sollenberg (Uppsala Universitet, tbc), Francesco Strazzari (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna), Guglielmo Tamburrini (University of Naples Federico II), and Francesco Vignarca (Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo).
For any further question or information request please contact the official email address of the School: schoolwarpeace@sns.it
* MERITA, the network for talent project is the result of a collaboration between five Italian academic institutions: the Scuola Normale Superiore, the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the Collegio Superiore dell’Università di Bologna, the Scuola Galileiana di Studi Superiori dell’Università di Padova and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Avanzati della Sapienza Università di Roma.
