Military and civic action programs and the development of local economy and civic institutions

军事和公民行动计划以及地方经济和公民机构的发展

• 批准号: 1628867
• 负责人: Melissa Dell
• 金额: $ 36.44万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-15 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1628867&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Military; civic; action; programs; development

U.S. military and civic action programs in weakly institutionalized societies, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan, have been central to U.S. foreign policy over the past half-century. These have been among the most costly expenditures in the U.S. federal budget and may have important national security consequences. Yet rigorous evidence about how different expenditures influence security, governance, civic engagement, and economic outcomes -- in the short and long run -- remains limited. The investigators will examine these questions using statistical data and opportunities for analysis provided by the Vietnam War. This project aims to provide clear, rigorous empirical findings to policymakers and military planners and to encourage academic research on the Vietnam War by making all data publicly available. It is difficult to estimate the causal impacts of U.S. military and civic action programs on the development of local economy and civic institutions, because regions where interventions occur are typically very different from those where they do not, and randomized evaluations are often unfeasible. Moreover, data about local governance and civil society rarely exist for a large number of locations, due to the high cost involved in collecting such information. Through extensive archival research, the investigators have produced detailed data and novel opportunities for identification that can shed light on the causal impacts of military actions in South Vietnam. This project will examine the bombing of civilian population centers by exploiting discontinuities in an algorithm used to target air strikes. This project will also empirically explore two alternative strategies for the development of local economy and civic institutions: civic action programs that combined ground troop deployment with participatory development aid, and psychological operations that aimed to change how South Vietnamese citizens thought about the state and the communist insurgency.

美国在越南和阿富汗等制度化程度较低的社会中的军事和公民行动计划，在过去半个世纪一直是美国外交政策的核心。这些是美国联邦预算中最昂贵的支出之一，可能会对国家安全产生重要影响。然而，关于不同支出如何影响安全、治理、公民参与和经济成果（无论是短期还是长期）的有力证据仍然有限。调查人员将利用越南战争提供的统计数据和分析机会来研究这些问题。该项目旨在为政策制定者和军事规划者提供清晰，严格的实证研究结果，并通过公开所有数据来鼓励对越南战争的学术研究。很难估计美国军事和公民行动计划对当地经济和公民机构发展的因果影响，因为干预发生的地区通常与没有干预的地区非常不同，随机评估通常是不可行的。此外，由于收集地方治理和民间社会信息的费用高昂，许多地方很少有这方面的数据。通过广泛的档案研究，调查人员已经产生了详细的数据和新的识别机会，可以揭示南越军事行动的因果影响。该项目将通过利用用于目标空袭的算法中的不连续性来研究对平民人口中心的轰炸。该项目还将从经验上探索两种替代战略，以发展当地经济和公民机构：公民行动计划，结合地面部队部署与参与式发展援助，以及旨在改变南越公民如何看待国家和共产主义叛乱的心理行动。