Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Building Peace Through Institutions? Revisiting the Logic of Institutional Engineering in Divided Societies Through Experiments

在严重分裂的社会中，政治制度的最佳设计是什么？哪种体制安排最适合缓解族裔紧张局势和避免冲突复发？这场辩论围绕着Arend Lijphart和Donald Horowitz开创性著作所提出的两种主要范式展开，这两种范式在假设、期望和建议方面有所不同，以减轻种族冲突的可能性。在缺乏一个明确的因果机制，政治制度与种族冲突，这项研究强调的作用，选举上诉的一个关键变量，是密切相关的冲突在分裂的社会，并认为，这两种理论确实可以共存，在一个更广泛和更富有成效的制度框架。该项目通过一种新的实验方法提供了经验证据，该方法专门用于解决对实验室以外结果有效性的担忧。该项目作出了几项贡献。从理论上讲，这项研究构成了霍洛维茨和Lijphart开创性工作三十年后对种族冲突的理解的直接进步，并将成为克服实证挑战以检验这些理论的第一批贡献之一。此外，它提供了一个重要的方法进步，因为它有助于评估使用实验室实验来了解现实世界的条件。通过对学生、纽约市的族裔社区和战后布隆迪的族裔群体重复同样的实验，可以评估实验室实验的结果在多大程度上可以推广到更广泛的人口。这项工作也是在种族政治的更大的文学极大的兴趣，因为它提供了必要的经验支持的作用，政治机构的代理人的变化的种族身份，它丰富了这些理论与新的因果机制。美国少数民族团体以及布隆迪以前被排除在权力之外的少数民族团体的参与也促进了代表性不足的群体参与研究。但该项目的影响更为广泛，因为其结果将对政策制定产生重大影响。在冲突后环境中，不同治理选择的影响存在不确定性，这往往迫使国际社会创造性地随机应变，重建一个分裂的社会。像巴尔干半岛这样的国家本可以从过去有效应对种族紧张关系的既定理论处方中受益，而伊拉克、阿富汗或布隆迪等国家显然可以立即从建设和平努力的明确可靠建议中受益，以便将其深刻的分歧转变为持久和平的成功道路。

What is the optimal design for political institutions in deeply divided societies? Which institutional arrangements are best fit to mitigate ethnic tensions and avoid the recurrence of conflicts? The debate revolves around two main paradigms initiated by the seminal works of Arend Lijphart and Donald Horowitz, which differ in their assumptions, expectations, and recommendations to mitigate the potential for ethnic conflict. In the absence of a clear causal mechanism linking political institutions to ethnic conflict, this study stresses the role of electoral appeals as a key variable that is closely tied to conflict in divided societies, and argues that those two theories can indeed coexist in a broader and more fruitful institutional framework. This project provides empirical evidence through a novel experimental approach, specifically designed to address concerns about the validity of results beyond the laboratory. The project makes several contributions. Theoretically, this study constitutes an immediate advancement in the understanding of ethnic conflict three decades after the pioneering work by Horowitz and Lijphart, and will be among the first contributions to overcome empirical challenges for testing those theories. Furthermore it provides an important methodological advancement, as it helps to evaluate the use of laboratory experiment to understand real-world conditions. By replicating the same experiment on student subjects, ethnic communities from New York City, and ethnic groups in post-war Burundi, it is possible to evaluate the extent to which results from laboratory experiment can be generalized to a broader population. This work is also of great interest for the larger literature in ethnic politics, as it provides needed empirical support for the role of political institutions as agents of change of ethnic identities, and it enriches those theories with new causal mechanisms. The involvement of minority groups in the US, as well as ethnic groups previously excluded from power in Burundi, also fosters the participation of under-represented groups in the study.But the impact of the project is broader, as its results will have a substantial impact for policy formulation. The uncertainty surrounding the impact of different governance choices in post-conflict environments has often forced the international community to creatively improvise to rebuild a divided society. Cases like the Balkans would have benefited from well-established theoretical prescriptions for coping effectively with their ethnic tensions in the past, and it is apparent how countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Burundi could immediately benefit from clear and reliable recommendations for peace-building efforts, in order to transform their their deep divisions on a successful path for a durable peace.