Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Location in Resource Rent Distribution and the Projection of Power in Africa

博士论文研究：资源租金分配的区位政治和非洲的权力投射

• 批准号: 1226228
• 负责人: Kosuke Imai
• 金额: $ 1.76万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-08-15 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1226228&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Politics; Location

It is well established in the social sciences that the presence of natural resources like oil and diamonds often leads to pernicious outcomes including sluggish economic growth, non-democratic governments, and civil conflict. Though it is relatively well-understood how oil and diamonds cause bad economic and governance outcomes, it is much less clear how these factors are related to the emergence of civil wars. Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are often held up as examples of wars over the territory where resources come out of the ground. This project clarifies that in fact civil wars are less likely to take place in these resource-rich regions, and instead take place far away from oil wells and diamond mines in peripheral parts of resource-rich countries. The project aims to identify through a case study of Nigeria and two rebel groups within it, one in the resource-rich South and one in the resource-poor Northeast, why this might be. The explanation developed in the project centers on the threat of protest and sabotage by residents in the resource region, which leads the state to use revenues from natural resources to buy off those threatening groups and to send additional military forces to the region to forestall remaining threats. The project will, first, develop a new dataset of state military power in sub-national regions by digitizing and coding Michelin Tire Company maps of sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to present to test the military forces argument. Second, interviews would make up case studies comparing two rebel groups, one in a resource-rich and one in a resource-poor region in Nigeria, to further test the theory of the mechanisms driving the resource-conflict relationship. The project's intellectual merit is rooted in its novel theoretical and methodological contributions. Unlike many existing studies, the project's theory predicts not only in which countries civil war will take place, but where within the countries, and an explanation for why conflicts take place in these places. The research is also novel methodologically. It will combine qualitative evidence collected in West Africa with quantitative evidence from cross-regional data across states or provinces on the location of civil wars within resource-rich states. Few studies in political science leverage quantitative evidence at the sub-national level, and a very few use cross-regional evidence from multiple countries.In addition to the intellectual contribution, the project has several broader impacts. The roads dataset - extending the coverage of existing data available only for the present back to 1960 - would substantially improve quantitative research on Africa. There are few reliable data covering the continent, and fewer still of substantive importance for social scientists. Roads are hypothesized, for example, to chart the projection of state power and economic activity over time. The entire dataset would be publicly disseminated. Donor funds, NGO time, and diplomatic action often aims to help states avoid the pernicious effects of new natural wealth. A study of the way governments respond to the new resources would inform new efforts to avoid them. The author aims to highlight flawed perceptions of the likely location of civil war threats, and three prescriptions to avoid them. First, social scientists' main advice is often revenue transparency. The theory developed suggests that is not nearly as important as disclosing how governments spend it and, critically, where. Second, regional economic equality may be critical, so the governments' hands could be tied to promote distributing revenue equally, and donor funds used to smooth the gaps. Finally, evidence on the effects of security force deployments could help prevent the power vacuums that are hypothesized to enable rebellion.

在社会科学中，石油和钻石等自然资源的存在往往会导致有害的结果，包括经济增长缓慢，非民主政府和国内冲突。虽然人们对石油和钻石如何造成不良的经济和治理结果的理解相对较好，但这些因素如何与内战的发生有关就不那么清楚了。尼日利亚、印度尼西亚、苏丹和刚果民主共和国经常被拿来作为争夺土地资源的例子。该项目阐明，事实上，内战不太可能发生在这些资源丰富的地区，而是发生在远离石油威尔斯和钻石矿的资源丰富的国家的周边地区。该项目旨在通过对尼日利亚及其两个反叛团体（一个在资源丰富的南部，一个在资源贫乏的东北部）的案例研究，确定这可能是为什么。该项目提出的解释集中在资源区居民抗议和破坏的威胁上，这导致国家利用自然资源的收入来收买那些威胁集团，并向该地区派遣额外的军事力量来预防剩余的威胁。首先，该项目将通过对米其林轮胎公司1960年至今的撒哈拉以南非洲地图进行数字化和编码，开发一个新的国家军事力量数据集，以测试军事力量的论点。第二，访谈将构成案例研究，比较两个反叛团体，一个在资源丰富的地区，一个在资源贫乏的地区，在尼日利亚，以进一步测试的理论机制驱动的资源冲突的关系。该项目的智力价值植根于其新颖的理论和方法的贡献。与许多现有的研究不同，该项目的理论不仅预测内战将在哪些国家发生，而且还预测了这些国家内部的何处，并解释了为什么这些地方会发生冲突。该研究在方法上也很新颖。它将把在西非收集的定性证据与来自各州或各省的跨区域数据的定量证据结合起来，以确定资源丰富国家内内战的位置。在政治学研究中，很少有研究在国家以下一级利用定量证据，也很少有研究使用来自多个国家的跨区域证据。除了智力贡献，该项目还有几个更广泛的影响。道路数据集-将现有数据的覆盖范围扩大到1960年-将大大改善对非洲的定量研究。覆盖非洲大陆的可靠数据很少，对社会科学家具有实质性重要意义的数据更少。例如，道路被假设用于绘制国家权力和经济活动随时间的预测。整个数据集将被公开传播。捐助资金、非政府组织的时间和外交行动往往旨在帮助国家避免新的自然财富的有害影响。对政府如何应对新资源的研究将为避免这些资源的新努力提供信息。作者旨在强调对内战威胁可能发生地点的错误看法，以及避免这些威胁的三个处方。首先，社会科学家的主要建议通常是收入透明度。发展起来的理论表明，这远不如披露政府如何支出以及（关键是）在哪里支出重要。第二，地区经济平等可能至关重要，因此政府的手可以被绑起来，以促进平等分配收入，捐赠资金用于弥合差距。最后，关于安全部队部署效果的证据有助于防止出现权力真空，而这种真空被认为会导致叛乱。