Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Federal Institutions and the Societies They Govern: How Can Decentralized Governance Contribute to Peace ?

政治学博士论文研究：联邦机构及其治理的社会：分权治理如何促进和平？

• 批准号: 0517153
• 负责人: Joel Migdal
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2006-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0517153&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Increasingly, both policy-makers and scholars have turned to federalism-or decentralized governance-as a promising alternative for containing struggles between central governments and ethnic minority groups seeking self-determination. Federal institutions combine shared-rule with self-rule and may, therefore, represent a compromise between sub-national challengers and the central leadership of the state, which is often reluctant to give up territory or power. Indeed, some scholars have found empirically that federalism has a "peace-preserving" effect, arguing that it reduces the likelihood of conflict by providing sub-national groups with institutional channels for voicing their demands. But these findings have been disputed by others, who maintain that federalism is not "peace-preserving" at all but actually encourages conflict by providing such groups with resources for mobilization. Over the past decades, while some federations have been free from internal conflicts, others have gone through periods of significant, prolonged violence, and still others have experienced occasional uprisings. What explains these divergent theoretical conclusions and empirical outcomes? To answer this question, it is critical to ask not only whether, but also under which conditions, federalism can contribute to defusing intrastate conflicts. This study will argue that the growing body of research addressing similar puzzles falls short on two accounts. First, absent is a systematic comparison of peaceful and conflict-ridden cases across federal states. Second, some studies seem to suggest that there is one optimal mix of decentralization and centralization, while others acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all federal solution but leave this without further theorizing. This study argues that the degree to which federal institutions can contribute to defusing conflict depends on how these institutions interact with the underpinnings of the societies they govern. In particular, the study proposes to demonstrate how and why the "peace-preserving" effect of specific federal traits-fiscal decentralization, political decentralization, and political co-partisanship-are conditional on a society's income level and ethnic composition. The study's central argument consists of three hypotheses that specify how federal institutions interact with these characteristics of societies, which will be tested against alternative explanations. The methods include both a quantitative analysis of provinces in 23 federal states and a qualitative, comparative analysis of separatist mobilization in three provinces over time: Chechnya, Punjab, and Quebec. Testing and piecing out the causal mechanisms of these hypotheses will require significant data collection, including field research in Russia, India, and Canada.This study promises to enrich our understanding of how particular forms of governance affect thelikelihood of intrastate conflicts, in particular self-determination conflicts. Drawing on research on ethnicity, political mobilization, civil wars, and political institutions, the study proposes to empirically demonstrate how federalism's "peace-preserving" effects are conditional on societal traits. Theoretically, the study has implications for our understanding of the relationship between institutions and society more broadly, as it sets out to systematically assess how institutional effects may vary from society to society. Beyond the scholarly implications, the broader societal impact of the study is that it promises to provide policy guidelines for the ways in which federal institutions can be tailored to specific societies to lessenthe chances of intrastate conflicts. Policy-makers have explored federal solutions to the conflicts between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, the Kosovo-Albanians and the Yugoslav government, and the Kurds and the Iraqi central authorities. Even though both policy-makers and scholars have come to view federal institutions as suitable for defusing conflicts in divided states, it is still unclear which factors contribute to the divergent track record of conflict in existing federations and how federalism's "peace-preserving" effects work. This study aims to directly address the issue of what sorts of institutions under which circumstances may reduce the possibility of intrastate conflicts. The investigators plan to share their findings with scholars and policy-makers both in the United States and abroad.

越来越多的政策制定者和学者都转向联邦制——或分权治理——作为遏制中央政府和寻求自决的少数民族群体之间斗争的一个有希望的选择。联邦机构将共享统治与自治结合在一起，因此可能代表了地方挑战者与国家中央领导之间的妥协，后者通常不愿放弃领土或权力。事实上，一些学者从经验上发现，联邦制具有“维护和平”的作用，他们认为联邦制为地方团体提供了表达诉求的制度性渠道，从而减少了冲突的可能性。但是这些发现受到了其他人的质疑，他们坚持认为联邦制根本不是“维护和平”，而是通过为这些团体提供动员资源而实际上鼓励了冲突。在过去的几十年里，虽然一些联邦没有内部冲突，但其他联邦经历了严重的、长期的暴力，还有一些联邦经历了偶尔的起义。如何解释这些不同的理论结论和实证结果？要回答这个问题，关键是不仅要问联邦制是否能有助于化解国内冲突，还要问在何种条件下联邦制能有助于化解国内冲突。这项研究认为，越来越多的研究解决了类似的难题，但在两个方面存在不足。首先，没有对联邦各州的和平案件和冲突案件进行系统比较。其次，一些研究似乎表明，存在一种分权和集权的最佳组合，而另一些研究承认，不存在放之四海而皆准的联邦解决方案，但没有进一步的理论化。本研究认为，联邦机构对化解冲突的贡献程度取决于这些机构如何与其所治理的社会基础相互作用。特别地，该研究提出要证明具体的联邦特征——财政分权、政治分权和政治合作——的“维护和平”效应如何以及为什么取决于社会的收入水平和种族构成。该研究的中心论点由三个假设组成，这些假设说明了联邦机构如何与社会的这些特征相互作用，这些假设将与其他解释进行检验。这些方法包括对23个联邦州的省份进行定量分析，以及对车臣、旁遮普和魁北克这三个省份的分离主义动员进行定性比较分析。测试和拼凑出这些假设的因果机制将需要大量的数据收集，包括在俄罗斯、印度和加拿大的实地研究。这项研究有望丰富我们对特定形式的治理如何影响国家内部冲突可能性的理解，特别是自决冲突。通过对种族、政治动员、内战和政治制度的研究，本研究试图从经验上证明联邦制的“维护和平”效应是如何以社会特征为条件的。从理论上讲，这项研究对我们更广泛地理解制度与社会之间的关系具有启示意义，因为它开始系统地评估制度效应如何因社会而异。除了学术意义之外，这项研究更广泛的社会影响在于，它有望为联邦机构如何适应特定社会提供政策指导，以减少国家内部冲突的可能性。决策者们探索了联邦解决方案，以解决泰米尔猛虎组织与斯里兰卡政府、科索沃-阿尔巴尼亚人与南斯拉夫政府、库尔德人与伊拉克中央政府之间的冲突。尽管政策制定者和学者都认为联邦制度适合于化解分裂国家的冲突，但目前仍不清楚是哪些因素导致了现有联邦中冲突的不同记录，以及联邦制的“维护和平”效果如何发挥作用。本研究旨在直接探讨何种制度在何种情况下可以减少国家内部冲突的可能性。研究人员计划与美国国内外的学者和政策制定者分享他们的发现。