Role-Playing International Intervention in Conflict Areas: Lessons from Bosnia for Northern Ireland Education Roberto Belloni Queens University Role-playing is a useful exercise in overcoming some of the limits of tra- ditional lecture-based teaching. While lectures presuppose the existence of a knowledgeable professor transmitting information to overall passive students, role-playing requires both the redefinition of the profes- sor ⁄ student relationship and the active and purposeful involvement of students. This paper is an initial attempt to assess a role-play designed to achieve three main results: support students to take a more active role and ownership of their learning process; develop students’ research, writing and presentation skills; and apply their knowledge to a specific case. Substantively, the exercise aimed at investigating the dynamics of conflict management and intervention in conflict areas by addressing a crisis situation in a Bosnian town. Because this exercise took place in an area (Northern Ireland) with a long history of conflict, all students had very personal and direct knowledge of inter-communal tensions and clashes. Role-playing gave them an opportunity to investi- gate critically the dynamics of conflict management and the limits of external intervention. Keywords: role-play, conflict management, Bosnia, Northern Ireland Problem-based learning, in-class simulations, and role-playing are affirming themselves as useful teaching tools at both undergraduate and graduate levels in political science and international studies departments. Typically students are presented with a scenario requiring their active involvement in addressing a pol- icy-issue. They research the background to a given problem, cooperate with their classmates in exploring the various dimensions of it, draft position papers and opinion essays, and debate competing views and alternative courses of action. This teaching technique can be an effective complement to traditional lectures, where students are provided with much theoretical information but do not need to actively engage with the newly acquired knowledge or apply it to a practical setting. By contrast, active learning through in-class simulations and role-playing allows students to develop their independent research skills, writing, and oral proficiency—significantly increasing student knowledge acquisition and reten- tion rates (Hertel and Millis 2002; Krain and Lantis 2006). It also provides Author’s note: I wish to thank Silvia Casini, Mary Alice Clancy, Neophytos Loizides, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and insightful comments. My greatest debt of all, implicit in my paper, is to Book VII of Plato’s Republic—still the key text for thinking critically about pedagogical issues. Ó 2008 International Studies Association. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ , UK . International Studies Perspectives (2008) 9, 220–234.