Collaborative Research: The Political Economy of Localized Communal Conflicts in Ethiopia

多民族社区在什么条件下会爆发暴力？为什么在一些社区，不同群体之间会爆发冲突，而在另一些社区则不会？这些问题是通过对埃塞俄比亚社区冲突的研究来调查的。埃塞俄比亚是一个贫穷的国家，当地的秩序经常因为邻近的团体拿起武器来解决争端而崩溃。通过检查地区一级的冲突模式，本研究项目旨在解释地方治理机构如何影响社会鸿沟和资源稀缺所产生的紧张局势。具体而言，本研究考察了暴力的爆发在多大程度上取决于不同群体在地区一级行政管理中的代表性，以及与天气有关的冲击对当地作物生产或动物饲养的影响程度。埃塞俄比亚为研究社区冲突是如何通过制度、身份和资源之间的相互作用产生的提供了一个理想的环境。虽然该国各区在民族多样性和土地生产力水平上差异很大，但过去15年采取的权力下放改革使所有地区都有权就预算支出、土地使用和农业投入作出决定。在正常时期，地区资源的分配可能不会影响公民的福利，但在一个依赖雨养农业的国家，在长期缺水期间，地区对土地和水的使用权力就成为一个关键问题。因此，地方集团是否垄断或共同控制地区行政可能影响它们之间暴力的爆发。为了评估埃塞俄比亚社区冲突的原因，该项目将建立一个在所有地区发现的冲突数据集，并在两年的时间内对选定的两个地区进行人种学研究。首先，该项目将利用政府和非政府信息来源，收集1995年至2006年间埃塞俄比亚550个地区的地方冲突数据集。地区一级的数据将允许进行统计分析，以检验暴力的爆发是否可归因于体制、人口或经济因素。其次，该项目将使用地区层面的数据集来确定两个地区进行深入的民族志研究。将与选定社区的成员组织面谈和焦点小组，以确定行政权力、人口压力和资源限制在实践中如何加剧群体之间的恐惧或竞争。这些民族志研究将进一步帮助确定如何在当地社会文化背景下理解社区冲突事件，压倒传统的争端解决机制，并可能造成反复发生的暴力循环。这个项目关系到非洲和其他发展中地区国家的稳定，这些国家有许多埃塞俄比亚的经济和政治特点。它的研究将直接涉及权力下放改革的影响，这种改革往往被宣传为解决多民族国家资源竞争的体制解决办法。然而，权力下放如何影响群体间暴力的爆发还有待证明，特别是当这些改革能够在地方一级重新调整权力时。该项目的研究结果将有助于更好地理解脆弱国家的制度变化如何与人口和资源压力相互作用。从这项研究中获得的经验教训将使学者和政策制定者能够制定更适合于防止经常退化为复杂的人道主义危机的社区冲突的制度改革。

Under what conditions does violence erupt in multiethnic communities? Why does conflict break out between groups in some communities but not in others? Such questions are investigated through a study of communal conflicts in Ethiopia, a poor country where local order often breaks down as neighboring groups take up arms to resolve their disputes. By examining patterns of conflict at the district level, this research project aims to explain how institutions of local governance influence tensions produced by social divides and resource scarcity. Specifically, this study examines to what extent the outbreak of violence depends on the representation of different groups in district-level administration and the intensity of weather-related shocks to local crop production or animal rearing.Ethiopia provides an ideal context for studying how communal conflicts arise through the interaction between institutions, identities, and resources. While the country's districts vary considerably in levels of ethnic diversity and land productivity, decentralizing reforms adopted in the past 15 years have empowered all districts to make decisions over budget expenditures, land use, and agricultural inputs. The distribution of district resources may not affect the welfare of citizens during normal times, but a district's authority over land and water use becomes a critical issue during the prolonged periods of scarcity often confronted in a country that depends on rain-fed agriculture. Whether local groups monopolize or share control of district administration could therefore influence the outbreak of violence between them.To assess the causes of communal conflict in Ethiopia, this project will develop a dataset of conflicts found in all districts and undertake ethnographic studies of two selected districts over a two-year period. First, the project will draw on government and non-government sources of information to assemble a dataset of local conflicts across Ethiopia's 550 districts between 1995 and 2006. The district-level data will allow for a statistical analysis that tests whether the outbreak of violence can be attributed to institutional, demographic, or economic factors. Second, the project will use the district-level dataset to identify two districts for in-depth ethnographic study. Interviews and focus groups will be organized with members of selected communities to establish how, in practice, administrative authority, demographic pressures, and resource constraints heighten fear or competition between groups. These ethnographic studies will further help to establish how episodes of communal conflict are understood in their local socio-cultural context, overwhelming traditional mechanisms of dispute resolution and possibly creating cycles of recurrent violence. This project is relevant to the stability of countries in Africa and other developing regions, which share many of Ethiopia's economic and political characteristics. Its research will directly address the impact of decentralizing reforms, which are often promoted as an institutional solution to the competition over resources in multiethnic countries. Yet, it remains to be shown how decentralization affects the outbreak of violence between groups, particularly when those reforms can bring about a realignment of power at the local level. This project's findings will provide a better understanding of how institutional changes interact with demographic and resource pressures in fragile states. The lessons derived from this research will permit scholars and policymakers to craft institutional reforms better suited to preventing communal conflicts that often degenerate into complex humanitarian crises.