The concentration is composed of a six-course cluster centering around conflict and cooperation within and between nations. Of these six courses, at least two and no more than three may be in the student's major. The peace and conflict studies concentration draws upon the long-standing interest in war, conflict and peacemaking, and social justice, as well as questions associated with the fields of anthropology, economics, history, political science, social psychology and sociology. It draws on these fields for theoretical understandings of matters such as bargaining, internal causes of conflict, cooperative and competitive strategies of negotiation, intergroup relations and the role of institutions in conflict management.

Students meet with the coordinator in the spring of their sophomore year to work out a plan for the concentration. All concentrators are required to take three core courses: the introductory course, General Programs 111a; either Political Science 206 or General Programs 322; and Political Science 347. It is advised that concentrators complete at least two of these three courses by the end of their junior year.

Students are required to take three additional courses chosen in consultation with the coordinator, working out a plan that focuses this second half of their concentration regionally, conceptually or around a particular substantive problem. These courses might include international conflict and resolution; ethnic conflict in general or in a specific region of the world (e.g. South Africa, the Middle East, Northern Ireland); a theoretical approach to the field, such as nonviolence, bargaining or game theory; an applied approach, such as reducing violence among youth, the arts and peacemaking, community mediation or labor relations.