Project Civil Strife: Multi-actor Models of Internal Conflict and Cooperation

政府和持不同政见者之间的敌意何时升级，为何升级？本项目发展了一个理论来回答这个问题，并指定了经验时间序列模型来测试理论所隐含的一些假设。具体来说，该项目提出了新的理论，重点关注政府和持不同政见的领导人，以及他们的动机对国内冲突过程中战术决策的影响。借鉴领导理论和政治生存理论，推导出行为规则，引导行动者在给定的情境条件下做出一定的战术选择。其次，将该理论扩展到分析与政府竞争的多个持不同政见者群体之间的行为交换。内乱项目（PCS）提供的最新数据能够通过收集有关多个国内行动者之间交换行为水平的信息来克服目前的数据限制。第三，分析政府与持不同政见者互动的结果如何影响领导人更替倾向，以及领导人更替、政变和政权更迭等关键事件如何影响政府与持不同政见者互动。这种实证工作有助于预测冲突的升级和降级，并制定政策处方，以减少社会行动者与政府之间的紧张关系。最后，该项目直接分析了领导者与其联盟之间的关系，并测试了领导者的战术选择是否以及如何受到联盟愿望的影响。更广泛的社会价值：该研究将在学术和政策领域做出贡献，从提高对政府和持不同政见领导人在国内冲突中的战术决策的学术理解，到为参与应对国内挑战的从业者提供信息。作为次要目标，该项目还开发了可用于各种其他研究项目的研究工具和数据集，例如侧重于贸易与冲突、投资与冲突、被迫移民以及国内与国际冲突联系的研究项目。

When and why do governments and dissidents escalate and de-escalate their hostility towards one another? This project develops a theory to answer this question and specifies empirical time series models to test a number of hypotheses implied by the theory. Specifically, the project advances new theory focusing on government and dissident leaders and the impact that their motivations have on tactical decisions over the course of a civil conflict. Drawing on theories of leadership and political survival, behavioral rules are deduced that lead actors to make certain tactical choices under given contextual conditions. Second, the theory is expanded to analyze behavioral exchanges among multiple dissident groups in competition with a government. Recent data produced from Project Civil Strife (PCS) is able to overcome present data limitations by collecting information on the levels of behavior exchanged among multiple domestic actors. Third, the project analyzes how outcomes of government-dissident interactions affect the propensity of leader turnover and how critical events such as leader turnover, coup d'etats, and regime changes affect government-dissident interactions. Such empirical work aids in forecasting the escalation and de-escalation of conflict and developing policy prescriptions to reduce tensions between social actors and the government. Finally, the project directly analyzes the relationship between leaders and their coalitions and tests if and how leaders' tactical choices are influenced by their coalitions' desires.Broader Social Value: The study will make contributions in both the academic and policy arenas ranging from improved academic understanding of government and dissident leaders' tactical decisions in domestic conflict to informing the efforts of practitioners involved in confronting domestic challenges. As a secondary objective, the project also develops research tools and data sets that can be used in a variety of other research projects such as those focusing on trade and conflict, investment and conflict, forced migration, and domestic-international conflict linkages.