Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Reformed or Reconfigured? Explaining Why Militant Groups Participate in Elections

专家和政策制定者最近就协议是否可以也应该让塔利班作为一个政党进入阿富汗政治展开了辩论。然而，协议的可行性仍然不确定，因为到目前为止，这个激进组织几乎没有表现出接触的迹象。此外，即使是这样的协议也不能保证和平。联合国等组织有时认为，在冲突后举行选举，通常包括前激进团体的参与，有助于实现持久和平。然而，激进组织在是否参加选举以及在冲突期间和冲突后表现得像政党方面存在很大差异，更重要的是，他们是否愿意在参与选举时放弃暴力。我们对激进组织参加选举的原因以及这如何影响随后实现和平的可能性知之甚少。处理这些问题的为数不多的案例研究集中在全面内战结束时的少数几个大型激进组织，因此它们倾向于假设和平是激进组织参与的结果，而不是在不同背景下探索其前景。此外，这项工作未能产生全面的因果理论，探索激进组织参与的动机，这些动机也解释了他们对其他参与者预期行为的反应。在从小型恐怖活动到大规模内战的各种冲突中，该项目试图回答两个相关的问题：为什么一些激进组织参加选举，而另一些不参加？为什么一些人随后继续使用暴力，而另一些人则不使用？这项研究采用了多种方法来理解激进组织的选举参与，以及随后对暴力的战术使用。这位研究人员根据她对哥伦比亚和北爱尔兰多个激进组织的实地考察，提出了一种激进组织参与选举的理论。该理论认为，该组织和政府都是战略参与者，他们的动机和行动共同决定了激进组织的参与以及选举后和平的结果。具体地说，激进组织在选举中与政府竞争的方式与与政府作战的方式必须大致一致；政府的期望也必须类似地一致。在国内冲突中，令人惊讶的事件可能会将这些信念转变为这样的结构。国际行为者的潜在存在，如另一个政府或非政府组织，也会影响双方的决定。研究人员在已经进行的案例研究中找到了改变这些对通过选票或子弹竞争的预期的因素，但所研究的州可能因为各种原因而有所不同。因此，这个项目将更广泛地检验这一理论。这位研究人员正在建立一个所有激进组织的全球数据集，其中包含一个衡量每个组织是否参加选举的指标。在NSF的支持下，研究人员将聘请本科生助理来完成这项测量的编码，然后收集一系列其他变量，允许对构成该项目理论的假设进行实证测试。通过对这些指标的考察，研究者可以评估该理论在不同情境下的有效性。首先，社会科学研究尚未为国内冲突期间做出的许多政治决定提供可靠的解释，特别是激进组织的选举参与。这项研究分析了这种参与是参与这一被忽视的研究领域的第一步。第二，了解这些局势中行为者的动机及其对选举结果的影响--在参与选举与和平方面--有助于为冲突国家以及其他国家和国际组织提出政策建议。最后，该项目提供了一个史无前例的、来源广泛的、透明编码的所有激进组织的数据集，其中包括有关组织和政府行动的信息，以及民众和国际支持的措施。这项关于使用任何类型暴力战术的各种规模的激进组织的研究，还通过提供一个论坛，测试战斗期间战术决策的理论及其对结束冲突的影响，促进了往往独立的内战和恐怖主义研究界之间的合作。

Pundits and policymakers have recently debated whether a deal could and should bring the Taliban into Afghan politics as a party. The feasibility of a deal remains uncertain, however, as the militant group has so far shown few signs of engagement. Furthermore, even such a deal would not guarantee peace. Organizations such as the United Nations sometimes assume that holding elections after conflict, usually including the participation of former militant groups, facilitates a durable peace. Yet militant groups vary greatly in whether they run candidates in elections and otherwise behave like political parties during and after conflict, and, importantly, in whether they are willing to relinquish violence while participating.We know very little about why militant groups participate in elections, and how this affects the subsequent likelihood of peace. The few case studies addressing these questions focus on a small number of large militant groups at the end of full-scale civil wars, and so they tend to assume that peace results from militant group participation rather than exploring its prospects in different contexts. Moreover, this work fails to generate comprehensive, causal theories exploring militant group motivations for participation that also account for their reactions to the expected behavior by other actors. In conflicts ranging from small terrorist campaigns to large civil wars, this project seeks to answer two related questions: why do some militant groups participate in elections while others do not? And, why do some subsequently continue to use violence while others do not?The study employs a multi-method approach to understand militant group electoral participation, as well as the subsequent tactical use of violence. The researcher specifies a theory of militant group electoral participation based on her fieldwork on multiple militant groups in Colombia and Northern Ireland. The theory identifies both the group and the government as strategic actors whose incentives and actions jointly determine the outcome in terms of the militant group's participation, as well as in terms of post-election peace. Specifically, there must be a rough alignment between how the militant group expects to do competing in elections against the government versus fighting it militarily; the government's expectations must similarly align. Amid civil conflict, surprising events can shift these beliefs into such a configuration. The potential presence of an international actor, such as another government or a non-governmental organization, also influences both sides' decisions. The researcher located factors that change these expectations about competing through ballots or bullets in the case studies already conducted, but the states examined may differ for a variety of reasons. Thus, this project will test the theory more broadly. The researcher is building a global dataset of all militant groups, which features a measure of whether each participates in elections. With NSF support, the researcher will hire undergraduate assistants to finish coding this measure, and then collect a series of other variables permitting empirical tests of the hypotheses making up the project's theory. By examining these indicators across many cases, the researcher can assess the theory's validity in different contexts.This project makes theoretical, pragmatic, and methodological contributions. First, social science research has not yet generated solid explanations for many of the political decisions made during civil conflicts, especially militant group electoral participation. This study analyzes such participation as an initial step toward engaging this neglected research area. Second, understanding the incentives of the actors in these situations and their impact on the outcome--in terms of electoral participation and peace--informs policy recommendations for the conflicted state, as well as other states and international organizations. Finally, this project provides an unprecedented, sourced, and transparently coded dataset of all militant groups that includes information on group and government actions, as well as measures of popular and international support. This research on all sizes of militant groups using any type of violent tactics also facilitates collaboration between the often separate civil war and terrorism research communities by providing a forum for testing theories of tactical decisions during fighting, and their impact on conflict termination.