Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cooperative Economic Projects and Peacebuilding

这项研究调查的是减少暴力冲突中群体之间的暴力和偏见的机制。学者、政府和非政府组织制定和实施旨在在冲突群体成员之间创造积极互动的战略，以此作为预防暴力的手段。然而，这些战略没有在目前参与冲突的群体中进行测试，这妨碍了对特定战略可能产生的影响的深入了解--无论这些战略是否有助于防止暴力或使冲突升级。该项目启动了两个相互冲突的群体之间的经济合作，以研究群体间的联系如何减少群体间的偏见。为了做到这一点，本研究使用了一种行为博弈作为手段，以获得一定程度的群体间偏见。研究人员设计了一种新的方法，通过观察群体间结构化互动中的利他主义或自私行为来衡量偏见，而不是更流行的基于调查的程序。该项目是在一个建设和平的非政府组织的协助下实施的，该地区的特点是农民和牧民之间存在严重的群体间暴力，每年导致数千人死亡，粮食高度不安全，财产遭到严重破坏，家庭和社区流离失所。这项研究的结果将为学者和政策制定者提供宝贵的见解，使他们了解防止群体间暴力的有效战略。技术摘要本研究的重点是减少冲突群体之间的暴力的策略。特别是，它与一个建设和平的非政府组织项目合作，该项目制定了这样一种战略，该战略源于一种“接触假说”。这一方法认为，竞争群体成员之间的结构化互动是减少群体间偏见的最有效手段。大量研究证实，群体间的互动可以减少偏见。事实证明，与外派群体打交道的经验可以消除负面的成见，并允许有偏见的个人重新定义外派群体。然而，最近的研究也得出结论，卷入冲突的群体之间的社会接触并不总是减少偏见，甚至可能增加偏见。积极的互动并不总是推广到整个群体，当这种积极的互动与个人强烈持有的偏见信念相冲突时，可能会增加偏见。该项目通过测试持续的经济合作是否以及如何减少冲突群体之间的偏见，为研究群体间的联系和减少偏见作出了贡献。该项目的另一个同样重要的贡献是一种衡量实地偏见的新颖和新的程序。偏见通常是通过调查回应来衡量的，这引发了对该衡量标准的可靠性的质疑。这项研究不是基于调查的措施，而是直接通过观察农民和牧民之间的公共产品游戏中的行为来评估偏见，这些群体参与了暴力冲突。该项目对减少冲突群体间偏见的接触理论进行了实证检验，并提出了一种新的偏见测量方法。它的发现将有助于学者、政策制定者和非政府组织评估其预防冲突和减少偏见战略的有效性。

General AbstractThis research investigates mechanisms that reduce violence and prejudice between groups currently involved in a violent conflict. Scholars, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) develop and implement strategies designed to create positive interactions between members of conflicting groups as means to prevent violence. These strategies, however, are not tested among groups currently engaged in conflict, which prevents insight into possible effects of particular strategies -- whether they serve to prevent violence or escalate conflict. This project initiates economic collaboration between two conflicting groups to study how intergroup contact might reduce intergroup prejudice. To do so, this study utilizes a behavioral game as means to gain a measure of intergroup prejudice. The researcher devises a new way to measure prejudice through the observation altruistic or selfish behavior during structured intergroup interactions, instead of the more prevalent survey-based procedure. The project is implemented with the assistance of a peace-building NGO in an area marked by significant intergroup violence between farmers and animal herders, which results in thousands of deaths per year, high levels of food insecurity, significant property destruction, and the displacement of families and communities. Results from the study will provide valuable insight to inform scholars and policymakers about effective strategies to prevent violence between groups. Technical AbstractThis research focuses on strategies to reduce violence between conflicting groups. In particular, it works with a peace-building NGO program that developed such a strategy derived from a "contact hypothesis." This approach posits that structured interactions between members of competing groups is the most effective means of reducing intergroup prejudice. Numerous studies confirm that intergroup interactions can reduce prejudice. Experiences with outgroups has been shown to remove negative stereotypes and allow the prejudicial individual to re-conceptualize the outgroup. Recent studies, however, also conclude that social contact between groups involved in conflict does not always reduce prejudice, and may even increase it. Positive interactions do not always generalize to the entire outgroup, and can increase prejudice when such positive interaction conflicts with an individual's strongly held prejudicial beliefs. This project contributes to the research intergroup contact and prejudice reduction by testing if and how sustained economic collaboration might reduce prejudice between conflicting groups. An additional and equally important contribution of this project is a novel and new procedure to measure of prejudice in the field. Prejudice is typically measured via survey responses, which raises questions with respect to the reliability of the measure. Instead of a survey-based measure, this study evaluates prejudice directly by observing behavior in a public goods game played between farmers and animal herders, groups engaged in violent conflict. This project offers an empirical test of contact theory to reduce prejudice between conflicting groups and a novel measure of prejudice. Its findings will benefit scholars, policymakers, and NGOs in evaluating the effectiveness of their conflict prevention and prejudice reduction strategies.