A Cross-Cultural Study of Political Participation and Peace

越来越多的证据表明，民主国家很少与其他民主国家开战。在一个民主似乎正在成为一种更常见的政府形式的世界里，这一证据将进一步表明，国际战争将变得不那么常见。然而，证据并不是确凿的：其他影响，例如双方的高收入水平或加入联盟，也可能有助于解释许多民主国家之间没有战争的原因。此外，对于为什么民主国家之间可以和平相处，理论上的理解还没有完全令人信服。为了更好地理解这一现象，该项目考察了非常不同类型的单位之间的战争与和平模式，即人类学家系统研究的通常较小的人种学单位。该项目将在从等级制度到参与式政治制度的各个层面上对这类社会的代表性样本进行衡量，然后询问(在适当控制下)参与式社会的内部战争是否比等级制度少，以及在与其他社会的关系中，参与式社会是否比等级制度社会更不可能与其他参与式社会作战。通过建立这些模式，以及促进这些模式的社会进程，该项目应该有助于理解民族国家等较大单位之间关系的基础。该项目包括一个本科生研究体验部分，让学生参与编码和收集数据，这些数据将用于随后的分析。这两名学生应该在三位杰出学者的直接指导下，在这个跨学科项目上有一次令人兴奋和内容丰富的教育经验。

Increasing evidence suggests that democratic countries rarely fight wars with other democratic countries. In a world where democracy seems to be becoming a more common form of government, this evidence would further suggest that international wars will become less common. Nevertheless, the evidence is not conclusive: other influences, such as mutually high levels of income or participation in an alliance, may also help to explain the absence of war between many democratic countries. Moreover, the theoretical understanding of why democracies may behave peacefully toward one another is not yet fully persuasive. To understand this phenomenon better, this project examines patterns of war and peace between very different kinds of units, namely, the usually small ethnographic units that have been systematically studied by anthropologists. The project will scale a representative sample of such societies on a dimension ranging from hierarchical to participatory political systems, and then inquire (with proper controls) whether participatory societies have less internal war than do hierarchical ones, and whether in relations with other societies participatory societies are less likely to fight other participatory societies than hierarchical ones. By establishing these patterns, and the social processes that promote them, the project should help in understanding the basis of relations between larger units such as nation-states. The project includes a Research Experience for Undergraduates component that involves students in the coding and collection of data that will be used for subsequent analysis. The two students should have an exciting and informative educational experience working on this inter-disciplinary project under the direct supervision of three outstanding scholars.