Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Achieving Post-War Peace: The Internal Politics of Colombia's Demilitarizing Rebel and Paramilitary Groups

政治学博士论文研究：实现战后和平：哥伦比亚非军事化叛军和准军事团体的内部政治

• 批准号: 0719460
• 负责人: Roger Petersen
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2008-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0719460&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

This project seeks to explain 1) why post-war armed organizations endure, go out of business or shift to a new sector (legal politics, crime) and 2) why ex-combatants either return to violence or successfully reintegrate into civilian life. 49% of civil wars, which ended between 1945-1999, erupted in subsequent war; 51% consolidated peace. To explain this variation, Political Science offers macro-level theories and micro-level empirics, but nothing in between. A major advance in the study of conflict and peace would come from filling this gap and theory building at the organizational level. This project attempts to construct such a theory. Additionally, it aims to develop a theory of post-war recruitment that treats post-conflict individuals not as independent agents, but as embedded in ex-combatant networks and groups which structure their decisions to demobilize. Last, it proposes to test this theory against hypotheses from the existing conflict literature that assumes semblance between pre and post war peace. To carry out this test, the study relies not on cross-national, but on original organizational, network, and individual level data.To build a theory of the post-war armed firm and its ex-combatant employees, this project analyzes the demilitarization of 48 paramilitary and rebel groups and 46,000 combatants in Colombia. It uses a multiple methods approach including in-depth interviews of experts on each armed group, ethnographic case studies of ex-combatant networks, and content analysis of armed organizations' records. Additionally, a large-scale individual-level survey of 500 demobilized individuals, 300 ex-combatants who have returned to arms, and 200 civilians will be conducted.This project affords social value in several ways. First, the project has the benefit of advancing knowledge of the causes of recurrent war, reintegration of ex-soldiers, and pacification of armed organizations and thus contributing to the development of demilitarization policy. Successful demilitarization of war-affected populations have proven vital to stabilizing post-conflict environments around the world, reducing the likelihood of renewed conflict, and facilitating countries' transitions from violence to peace, normalcy and reconstruction. Developing an understanding of how to achieve such success thus promises great benefits to society. Second, the study offers an additional benefit of developing intellectual collaboration and research partnerships between American and Colombian. Last, the results of this project will be disseminated broadly in the hope of informing policy in Colombia, the United States and other conflict zones.

这个项目试图解释1)为什么战后武装组织能够存活、倒闭或转向新的领域（法律政治、犯罪），以及2)为什么前战斗人员要么回归暴力，要么成功地重新融入平民生活。1945年至1999年间结束的内战中有49%是在随后的战争中爆发的；51%巩固了和平。为了解释这种差异，政治学提供了宏观层面的理论和微观层面的经验，但没有介于两者之间。冲突与和平研究的重大进展将来自于在组织一级填补这一空白和建立理论。本项目试图构建这样一个理论。此外，它的目的是发展一种战后征聘理论，这种理论不把冲突后的个人视为独立的代理人，而是把他们视为嵌入前战斗人员网络和团体的一部分，这些网络和团体构成了他们复员的决定。最后，本文建议对这一理论进行检验，以反对现有冲突文献中的假设，这些假设假设了战前和战后和平之间的相似性。为了进行这项测试，本研究不是依靠跨国数据，而是依靠原始的组织、网络和个人层面的数据。为了建立战后武装公司及其前战斗人员的理论，本项目分析了哥伦比亚48个准军事组织和反叛组织以及46,000名战斗人员的非军事化。它采用多种方法，包括对每个武装团体的专家进行深入访谈，对前战斗人员网络进行人种学案例研究，以及对武装组织记录进行内容分析。此外，还将对500名复员人员、300名重返武装的前战斗人员和200名平民进行大规模的个人调查。这个项目在几个方面提供了社会价值。首先，该项目的好处是增进对经常性战争原因的认识，使退役士兵重新融入社会，使武装组织平静下来，从而有助于制定非军事化政策。事实证明，成功实现受战争影响人口的非军事化对于稳定世界各地冲突后环境、减少重新发生冲突的可能性以及促进各国从暴力向和平、正常状态和重建过渡至关重要。因此，了解如何取得这样的成功将给社会带来巨大的利益。其次，这项研究为美国和哥伦比亚之间发展智力合作和研究伙伴关系提供了额外的好处。最后，将广泛传播这个项目的结果，以期为哥伦比亚、美国和其他冲突地区的政策提供信息。