Doctoral Dissertation Research: Mediating Democracy: External Aid and Local Conflict Resolution

布朗大学博士生苏珊H。埃里森，由凯博士监督B。沃伦将研究外国资助的“替代性纠纷解决”（ADR）计划的本地效果。这种调解方案正在世界各地激增。本研究旨在了解ADR产生或抑制什么样的政治实践，以及人们如何看待自己和作为政治行为者的行为，以及传统形式的权力和政治参与的后果。此外，本研究将考虑冲突管理课程，暴力预防运动，以及更广泛的和平建设计划，如联合国等组织在全球推广的政治和语用学。研究将在玻利维亚的埃尔阿尔托市进行，那里的ADR计划是在2003年由农村和城市贫困的玻利维亚人领导的起义之后引入的。埃尔阿尔托目前提供的许多解决冲突方案为居民提供无偿法律的援助，同时强调调解是正式法律的制度之外的一种更能令个人满意的替代办法。然而，自2008年以来，解决冲突的方案已经陷入了一个更大的全国性辩论，即谁在玻利维亚设定民主的条件，以及如何定义正义。通过深入和半结构化的访谈，档案研究和文件分析，本研究将重建与ADR类似的举措玻利维亚参与的历史，并探讨在该国的冲突解决方案的既定目标和有争议的意义。为了在实践中检验这一制度，这项研究的大部分将致力于在埃尔阿尔托的调解中心和针对公众的公民教育和调解讲习班中进行广泛的参与观察。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于社会科学地理解针对日常或微观层面暴力和冲突经历的干预措施之间的相互作用，以及解决更大规模的社会紧张局势和民主不和的问题。 该研究还将产生新的数据，为有关长期冲突和外国援助的政策提供信息。资助这项研究也支持研究生的教育。

Brown University doctoral student Susan H. Ellison, supervised by Dr. Kay B. Warren, will examine the local effects of foreign-funded "Alternative Dispute Resolution" (ADR) programs. Such mediation programs are proliferating throughout the world. This research seeks to understand what kinds of political practices ADR engenders or inhibits, and with what consequences for how people think about themselves and behave as political actors, and for traditional forms of power and political engagement. Additionally, this research will consider the politics and pragmatics of conflict management courses, violence prevention campaigns, and broader peace-building programs such as those promoted globally by organizations such as the United Nations.The research will be carried out in the city of El Alto, Bolivia, where ADR programs were introduced in the wake of a 2003 uprising led by rural and urban poor Bolivians. Many of the conflict resolution programs currently offered in El Alto provide residents pro-bono legal aid while stressing mediation as a more individually satisfying alternative to the formal legal system. Since 2008, however, conflict resolution programs have become entangled in a much larger national debate over who sets the terms of democracy in Bolivia and how justice will be defined. Through in-depth and semi-structured interviews, archival research, and document analysis, this research will reconstruct the history of Bolivian engagements with ADR-like initiatives and probe the stated aims and contested meaning of conflict resolution programs in the country. To examine this system in practice, the bulk of this research will be dedicated to extensive participant observation in El Alto-based mediation centers and in civic education and mediation workshops aimed at the general public.This research is important because it will contribute to social scientific understanding of the interplay between interventions aimed at everyday or micro-level experiences of violence and conflict, and those addressing larger-scale social tensions and democratic discord. The research also will produce new data that can inform policy concerned with chronic conflict and foreign aid. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.