Dissertation Improvement Grant in Sociology: Humanitarian Security in Assistance Contexts

NSF学位论文改进补助金--Marianne Abbott(共同-PI)、俄亥俄州立大学J.Craig Jenkins(PI)、俄亥俄州立大学危险干预：援助环境中的人道主义安全人道主义援助机构面临其任务的悲剧性方面的挑战--对援助提供者的致命袭击。这项研究解决了与这一社会问题相关的两个广泛问题：是谁对援助人员实施了致命袭击，以及为什么袭击者参与了这种暴力行为？自1990年代初以来，针对援助人员的致命袭击包括广泛的事件和大量事件，从随机暴力到有预谋的谋杀。到目前为止，该项目的工作包括建立一个新闻报道的援助人员死亡人数数据库，以确定过去15年中近1000名援助人员死于暴力袭击。这项研究的分析部分有两个方面：首先，我们将交叉验证我们的新闻数据集与现有机构报告的死亡估计数，以确保我们拥有尽可能完整的死亡数据集。我们还将进一步细化变量，以确定这些攻击的性质、涉及的代理以及这些攻击背后的意图。这些改进将提高我们对这些事件及其发生的社会政治背景的分析的质量。这项研究的更广泛影响涉及其对人道主义安全问题的现实影响。我们试图找出是谁在发动袭击，以及为什么。这些问题间接地解决了人道主义机构面临的一个关键问题--“对暴力袭击的最佳反应是什么？”工人们应该被撤退吗？他们是否应该通过坚持和改善与军队和维和人员的协调来解决暴力问题？由于该项目以仔细构建和验证援助人员死亡数据集为基础，并试图使两个非常重要的变量具有可操作性和精确度，这些数据和分析也将为试图为其援助人员提供更好安全的决策者和人道主义援助组织提供有用的信息。

NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant -- Marianne Abbott (Co-PI), The Ohio State University J. Craig Jenkins (PI), The Ohio State UniversityDangerous Intervention: Humanitarian Security in Assistance ContextsHumanitarian aid agencies are challenged by a tragic aspect of their missions -- fatal attacks on assistance providers. This research addresses two broad questions related to this social problem: Who perpetrates fatal attacks against aid workers and why are attackers engaging in this violence? Since the early 1990s, fatal attacks leveled at aid personnel have included a broad range of events and a large number of incidents, spanning from random violence to premeditated murder. Work on this project to date involves the construction of a database of news-reported aid worker fatalities that identifies almost 1,000 aid worker deaths resulting from violent attacks over the past 15 years. The analytical component of this research is twofold: First, we will cross-validate our news dataset with existing agency-reported death estimates to ensure that we have the fullest possible fatality dataset. We will additionally refine variables that identify the nature of these attacks, the agents involved, and the intentions behind these attacks. These enhancements will improve the quality of our analysis of these incidents and the sociopolitical contexts in which they events occur. The broader impact of this research relates to its real-world implications vis-a-vis humanitarian security issues. We seek to discover who is doing the attacking and why. These questions indirectly address one of the key issues facing humanitarian agencies - "what is the best response to violent attack?" Should workers be withdrawn? Should they address violence by persisting and improving coordination with militaries and peacekeepers? As this project is grounded in a careful construction and validation of the aid worker fatality dataset, and seeks to operationalize and refine two very important variables, these data and this analysis will also provide useful information to policymakers and humanitarian aid organizations attempting to provide better security for their aid workers.