Why I chose to study Conflict and Democracy Studies

My educational journey has led me to three continents and in the field of social science, my first tertiary education thus my undergraduate was in Ghana. I graduated with social work with sociology at the undergraduate level since it was my first exposure to knowledge in the social science field I was intrigued and wanted to have more in-depth knowledge in this field. My interest and eagerness to pursue knowledge in the field led me to study MSc. Public administration in China; one may be wondering “Why China upon all the places?” I chose to study in China out of curiosity about their governance system as their governance system is communist with a one-party state. I wonder what living in a country with restrictions will be like and the side that I want to study their administrative system thus how come I chose to study in the program public administration? I have lived in China for 5 years and my stay both in terms of studies and work was very challenging due to the language barrier and the system but after being fluent in the language and getting familiar with the Chinese culture I enjoyed my stay.

In the year 2022, I decided to further my education and this time I decided to move from the East to the West. I started to surf the internet for universities mostly European universities and the issue of affordability was very critical in my search as I wanted low tuition fees with a low cost of living. While searching online I came across Masaryk University in Czechia and I quickly search their programs in the faculty of social studies and found out about “Conflict and democracy studies”. After reading about the program I became very interested about the program and decided to apply for it. The most difficult situation I encountered was the fact that the program was at the master’s level and not Ph.D. As I have already acquired a master’s degree in public administration in China the next level was for me to pursue Ph.D. but I then finally decided to pursue another master’s degree in Conflict and democracy studies due to my love for the program after reading the courses under the program.

Conflict and democracy studies were confusing at first as I was wondering how can conflict be merged with democracy as both two are different scopes but after reading the program I realize that the program focuses on the discussion of the variety of potential relationships between democracy (and its quality), authoritarianism, totalitarianism, democratization, and conflict. Considering my background as an African I was eager to learn such a program in order to gain more knowledge to solve real-life problems faced in my country Ghana. I have done four courses under the program namely Conflict Analysis, Modern Technologies and Conflict, Comparative Perspectives on democracy and development, Hybrid Warfare, Political violence, Democratization and de-democratization, security systems, and Actors and Pluralism and Disagreement: Issues in Contemporary Political Theory. Although all the causes interest me, Comparative perspectives on democracy and development and political violence are of major interest to me as its so practical and one can relate to real-world situation.

I am done with one academic year in this program so far and left with one more academic year to go as the program is a two-year program, and so far I say to myself I made the right decision to pursue this program and I won’t hesitate to recommend this program to other students in the diaspora to pursue.