Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Microdynamics of Participation in Civil War

本研究的重点是民众参与内战的动机。相当多的研究已经探讨了什么样的国家倾向于卷入内战，但很少有人调查为什么以前爱好和平的个别公民决定拿起武器。这项工作旨在确定：1)什么样的需求、欲望和事件最有可能驱使人们奔赴前线；2)什么样的个人特征与参与内战有关。这些问题最好通过对平民和前战斗人员的调查来解决。鉴于我们目前对冲突动态的理解存在差距，调查研究正成为研究内战的首选技术。在将调查研究引入该领域之前，政治学在很大程度上依赖于跨国研究和定性分析。跨国定量研究表明，可出口初级商品的丰富和显著的种族异质性与战争爆发密切相关，但这些研究结果经不起推诿。定性研究提供了直觉和一些假设，但大多数还没有经过大规模的严格测试。调查允许对参与动机的假设进行统计检验，使用的数据来自发现自己处于特殊情况的普通公民的广泛样本。将对布隆迪近2000名前战斗人员和平民进行调查。这些数据，结合来自前战斗人员的叙述，将有助于解释布隆迪革命的参与。此外，将在利比里亚进行一项姊妹调查，那里战争的动态、目标和结果非常不同。利比里亚在许多重要方面是一个对比鲜明的例子：利比里亚的参与往往是被迫的，而布隆迪的参与基本上是自愿的；利比里亚的自然资源丰富，而布隆迪的自然资源匮乏；利比里亚境内有16个少数民族，而人口是利比里亚两倍的布隆迪境内只有3个少数民族。通过改变人们做出参与决策的社会环境，哪些动机是最重要的将在不同的文化和冲突中进行测试。这一研究议程可以为政策制定和学术界做出重要贡献。虽然内战是由拥有资源、权力和动机发动叛乱的个人发起的，但它们是通过普通公民的支持和参与而得以延续的。了解个人在什么条件下进行战斗，不仅可以帮助有关各方预测哪些国家可能会爆发冲突，还可以帮助预测哪些公民会参与其中。这种知识可以使预防工作针对特定阶层的人和社会状况，从而使预防冲突更加有效。

This research focuses on the motivations for popular participation in civil war. Considerable research has already explored what sorts of countries tend to engage in civil war, but little has been done to investigate why individual citizens, formerly peaceful, decide to take up arms. This work seeks to determine 1) what needs, desires, and events are most likely to drive people to the battlefront and 2) what sorts of individual characteristics are associated with civil war participation. These questions are best addressed through surveys of civilians and former fighters. Survey research is becoming the technique of choice in studying civil war, given the gaps in our current understanding of conflict dynamics. Prior to the introduction of survey research into the field, political science relied heavily on cross-national studies and qualitative accounts. Cross-national quantitative studies had suggested an abundance of primary commodity exportables and significant ethnic heterogeneity are strongly associated with war outbreaks, but these findings have failed to withstand scrutiny. Qualitative studies have offered intuition and several hypotheses, but most have yet to be rigorously tested on a large scale. Surveys allow for the statistical test of hypotheses about motivations for participation using data from a broad sample of average citizens who found themselves in an extraordinary situation. A survey will be conducted of nearly 2000 former fighters and civilians in Burundi. This data, combined with narratives from former fighters, will help explain participation Burundi''s revolution. In addition, a sister survey will be conducted in Liberia, where the dynamics, objectives and outcome of the war were very different. Liberia serves as a contrasting case in many important ways: participation in Liberia was often coerced while in Burundi it was largely voluntary; Liberia''s natural resources are abundant while Burundi''s are scarce; and Liberia has sixteen ethnic groups living within its borders, while Burundi, with twice the population, has only three. By varying the social environments in which people make their participation decisions, which motivations are most important will be tested across different cultures and conflicts. This research agenda can make an important contribution to policymaking as well as academia. While civil wars are initiated by individuals with the resources, power and motivation to begin an insurgency, they are perpetuated through the support and participation of normal citizens. Understanding under what conditions individuals fight can help interested parties predict not just which countries might break into conflict, but which citizens will participate in it. This knowledge can make efforts at prevention targeted towards specific classes of people and social conditions, thus making conflict prevention more effective.