Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Ending Conflict Early

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。为什么国内武装冲突会引发，又是什么原因导致冲突持续下去，将各国拖入多年的混乱和痛苦之中？在过去的二十年里，这些问题激发了广泛的研究，极大地促进了对这一主题的认识。然而，现有的研究绝大多数集中在这个世界上--S最持久、最具破坏性的冲突。然而，要透彻地理解内战以及如何防止内战，不仅要分析那些有能力引发大规模暴力、长期抵抗政府反叛乱努力的反叛团体，还要分析那些在达到这种暴力能力之前被击败的反叛团体。该项目通过研究1986年至2006年乌干达境内18起叛乱的早期阶段及其反叛乱对策来填补这一空白。其中一些冲突很快就结束了，而另一些冲突则持续了几十年。这项研究将包括对乌干达前叛军领导人、军事领导人和社区领导人进行广泛的访谈。这些访谈将提供有关历史记录中遗漏的冲突事件的重要信息，以及这些冲突中根本无法捕捉到的关键行动者的信念和战略。研究一个国家在短时期内多重冲突的微观基础的方法为可控比较提供了难得的机会。这项研究的一个更广泛的影响将是发展关于早期冲突开始和预防的理论和提供新的证据，潜在地提出在这些关键的、新的阶段预防冲突的途径。此外，这项研究提供了一个机会，以了解发动反叛乱的“弱小”国家的战略和行为，这是一个今天可以说研究不足的话题。更好地理解治理薄弱领土上冲突的逻辑，有助于深化我们对国家能力和国内安全的概念。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Why do internal armed conflicts spark, and what causes them to endure, dragging countries into years of disorder and anguish? These questions have animated extensive research in the past two decades, significantly advancing knowledge on this topic. However, this existing research has focused overwhelmingly on the world?s most protracted and destructive conflicts. Yet a thorough understanding of civil war and how it might be prevented must be informed by analyses not only of rebel groups that achieved an ability to incur large-scale violence, resisting government counterinsurgency efforts for long periods, but also those that were defeated before they achieved this capacity for violence. This project fills that gap by studying the early stages of 18 insurgencies and their counterinsurgency responses in Uganda from 1986 to 2006. Some of these conflicts ended quickly, while others raged on for decades. This study will include conduct extensive interviews of former rebel leaders, military leaders, and community leaders in Uganda. These interviews will provide critical information about the events of conflict that are omitted from the historical record, as well as the beliefs and strategies of key actors in these conflicts that simply could not otherwise be captured. The method of studying the microfoundations of multiple conflicts in a single country over a brief period offers a rare opportunity for controlled comparisons. One broader impact of this research will be to develop theory and offer new evidence about early-stage conflict onset and prevention, potentially suggesting avenues for forestalling conflict in these critical, nascent stages. Additionally, this research offers an opportunity to learn about the strategy and behavior of "weak" states that wage counterinsurgencies, a topic that is arguably understudied today. A better understanding of the logic of conflict in weakly-governed territories promises to deepen our conceptualization of state capacity and internal security.