Competition in a Post-conflict Landscape

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。研究内战后果的社会科学家发现，“战后”并不一定意味着“冲突后”。随着官方和解进程的推进，冲突可能会被秘密地进行，因为以前的对手在战后的局势中争夺地位。该奖项支持的研究质疑这种现象是否不可避免：持续的对抗是路径依赖的一个例子吗？路径依赖是一种理论，即过去规定了制度、技术和认知结构和模式，作为对未来行为的约束。但问题仍然存在，比如这是如何发生的，这些受约束的行为是如何出现的，是什么反馈机制加强了它们，以及它们可以被打断和重新定向的程度。冲突后社会为解决这些问题提供了独特的机会，因为可以在日常生活的微观过程中追踪到社会变革的努力、对这些努力的抵制以及结果。这项研究的发现将对研究政策实施障碍的理论家和希望政策成功的政策制定者具有重要意义。这项研究将由匹兹堡大学的法律人类学家罗伯特·海登博士进行。研究人员已将冲突后的波斯尼亚-黑塞哥维那确定为进行研究的适当地点。内战(1992-1995年)后，该领土根据宪法被划分为区域，在每个区域中，三个相互竞争的族裔-宗教社区中的一个在人口统计上占主导地位，尽管有多个社区。基础科学研究的问题是，在新出现的群体间关系中，是否有证据表明路径依赖。研究人员将收集关于遗产权利主张和被毁景观重建的数据，以检验这样一种假设，即重建和替换一直是战略性的，而不是中立的，它们加强了战前关系，而不是创造了新的关系。研究人员和他的团队将收集有关网站破坏和重建的数据；网站重要性和优势的量化衡量，包括中心性和规模；以及社区互动。他们将采用混合方法，包括档案研究、官方记录分析、利益相关者访谈和地理空间制图。主要的焦点将是历史上敌对的社区，但样本也将包括中立的控制组。这项研究将为学生的国际研究合作和机会提供支持。这项研究的结果将丰富关于冲突后背景下限制行为改变的社会科学理论，并将通过更好地了解多种族社会中冲突的持续性来服务于国家安全。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Social scientists who study the aftermath of civil war have found that "post-war" does not necessarily mean "post-conflict." While official reconciliation processes move forward, conflict may be pursued covertly as former adversaries jockey for position in post-war landscapes. The research supported by this award asks if this phenomenon is inevitable: is the persistence of antagonism an example of path dependency? Path dependency is the theory that the past lays down institutional, technological, and cognitive structures and patterns that act as constraints on future behaviors. But questions remain about how this happens, how these constrained behaviors emerge, the feedback mechanisms that reinforce them, and the degree to which they can be interrupted and redirected. Post-conflict societies provide a unique opportunity to address these questions because efforts at social change, resistance to these efforts, and outcomes can be tracked in the micro-processes of daily life. Findings from this research will be important for theorists studying barriers to policy implementation and for policy makers who want their policies to succeed. The research will be conducted by legal anthropologist, Dr. Robert Hayden (University of Pittsburgh). The researcher has identified post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina as an appropriate site to conduct the research. After the civil war (1992-1995), the territory was divided constitutionally into regions, in each of which one of the three competing ethno-religious communities is dominant demographically although multiple communities are present. The basic science research question is whether there is evidence of path dependence in newly emerging intergroup relationships. The researcher will collect data on claims of heritage rights and the recreation of destroyed landscapes to test the hypothesis that reconstruction and replacement have been strategic rather than neutral and that they reinforce pre-war relationships rather than creating new ones. The researcher and his team will collect data on site destruction and rebuilding; quantitative measures of site importance and dominance, including centrality and size; and community interactions. They will employ a mixed-methods approach including archival research, analysis of official records, stakeholder interviews, and geo-spatial mappings. The primary focus will be historically antagonistic communities but the sample also will include a neutral control group. The research will support international research collaborations and opportunities for students. The results of the research will enrich social science theory of constraints on behavioral modifications in post-conflict contexts, and will serve interests of national security through better understanding of conflict persistence in multi-ethnic societies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.