Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Dynamics of Civil Wars

是什么导致武装团体继续战斗，即使面对谈判解决或强加的军事解决方案的广泛尝试？关于武装团体活动的丰富信息与对这一行为的系统解释形成鲜明对比。反过来，系统的模型往往无法考虑武装团体的活动环境。该项目提出了一种新的内战持续时间和结束理论，将对冲突的系统和深入了解结合在一起。行为者如何从仅存在于冲突期间的机会中获益，解释了冲突的持续时间和结束。在战争期间，行为者利用和平条件下得不到的机会。当以生存为条件，行动者仍然能够利用这些独特的机会时，战争就会继续下去。这一理论表明，政策制定者将资源集中在那些扼杀冲突附带好处的活动上。这一理论的政策含义与文学和政策界普遍存在的终止战争的可信承诺观点的预测不同。将通过对黎巴嫩内战(1975-1990年)的实地研究，采用并行的定性和定量战略来研究战时机会理论：与前战斗人员和平民进行访谈，并汇编关于冲突的分类数据库。黎巴嫩战争和政治问题的多个维度使该项目能够在一场冲突中检查研究人员在许多不同冲突中必须探索的内容。研究设计还明确概括了实地调查的结论，利用跨国数据和其他国家研究以及对北爱尔兰冲突的分析，将黎巴嫩内战置于背景之中。这项工作符合一个更大的研究议程，其目的是产生和检验关于内战动态的更好理论，该理论可以解释冲突期间的结果及其对冲突后局势的影响。目前文献中对结束内战的解释可能是不正确的，因为它们严重依赖于这样一种假设，即无法可信地承诺未来的解决方案会促使行为者继续战斗。通过提出一种不依赖于可信承诺的原创战争终止理论，该项目改变了国际关系和比较政治学者对内战的理解。通过实地调查和比较分析对理论进行严格的实证检验，将推动研究领域的发展。该项目所涉政策问题还将有助于关于结束内战和冲突后稳定的政策辩论。该项目的实地工作涉及与黎巴嫩学术界的大量伙伴关系。黎巴嫩研究生和本科生将被聘为实地工作的数据库和面试部分的研究助理(RAS)。RAS将接受培训，并与联合首席调查员密切合作，将教育和研究结合起来。以阿拉伯语发布该项目的结果将有助于传播研究结果，并将该研究的影响从美国和黎巴嫩的学术界扩大到黎巴嫩社会，黎巴嫩的研讨会和演讲也是如此。此外，美国对该项目政策影响的强调将为社会带来实质性的好处。目标是提高政策制定者限制国内战争破坏性影响和建立冲突后稳定的能力。

What leads armed groups to continue fighting, even in the face of extensive attempts at negotiated settlements or imposed military solutions? The rich information available on the activities of armed groups contrasts with few systematic explanations of this behavior. Systematic models, in turn, often fail to account for the environment in which armed groups operate. This project proposes a new theory of civil war duration and termination that combines the systematic with in-depth knowledge of conflict. How actors benefit from opportunities that exist only during conflict explains duration and termination of conflict. During wartime, actors exploit opportunities unavailable to them under conditions of peace. Wars continue when, conditional on survival, actors remain able to exploit these unique opportunities. The theory suggests that policy-makers concentrate resources on activities that choke off the collateral benefits to conflict. The policy implications of this theory diverge from the predictions of the credible commitment view of war termination prevalent in the literature and policy circles. The theory of wartime opportunities will be investigated through field research on the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) using parallel qualitative and quantitative strategies: interviews with ex-combatants and civilians and compilation of a disaggregated database on the conflict. The multiple dimensions of warfare and political issues at play in Lebanon allow the project to examine in one conflict what researchers would have to explore in many separate conflicts. The research design also explicitly generalizes findings from the fieldwork by placing the Lebanese Civil War in context using cross-national data and other national studies and by an analysis of the conflict in Northern Ireland. This work fits into a larger research agenda that aims to generate and test a better theory of the dynamics of civil wars that can explain outcomes during conflict and their effects on the post-conflict situation. Current explanations of civil war termination in the literature are likely incorrect because of their heavy reliance on the assumption that an inability to credibly commit to a future settlement drives actors to continue fighting. By proposing an original theory of war termination which does not rely on credible commitment, this project changes how scholars in International Relations and Comparative Politics understand civil wars. The rigorous empirical test of the theory through fieldwork and comparative analysis will advance the field of study. The project's policy implications will also contribute to policy debates on civil war termination and post-conflict stability. The project's fieldwork involves substantial partnership with the academic community in Lebanon. Lebanese graduate and undergraduate students will be hired as research assistants (RAs) for the database and interview portions of the fieldwork. RAs will be trained and work closely with the co-principal investigator, integrating education and research. Publication of the project's results in Arabic will help to disseminate the findings and extend the research's impact beyond academic circles in the United States and Lebanon to Lebanese society, as will workshops and presentations in Lebanon in addition the U.S. The project's emphasis on the policy implications will provide substantial benefits to society. The goal is to improve the ability of policy-makers to limit the devastating effects of internal warfare and build post-conflict stability.