Collaborative Research: The Political Economy of Localized Communal Conflicts in Ethiopia

在什么情况下，多民族社区会爆发暴力事件？为什么一些社区的群体之间会爆发冲突，而另一些社区则不会？这些问题是通过对埃塞俄比亚社区冲突的研究来调查的。埃塞俄比亚是一个贫穷的国家，随着邻国团体拿起武器解决争端，当地秩序经常崩溃。通过研究地区一级的冲突模式，本研究项目旨在解释地方治理机构如何影响社会分化和资源稀缺所产生的紧张局势。具体地说，这项研究考察了暴力的爆发在多大程度上取决于不同群体在地区一级行政管理中的代表性，以及与天气有关的对当地农作物生产或动物饲养的冲击的强度。埃塞俄比亚为研究社区冲突是如何通过机构、身份和资源之间的互动而产生的提供了理想的背景。虽然该国各区的种族多样性和土地生产力水平差异很大，但过去15年采取的权力下放改革使所有区都有权就预算支出、土地使用和农业投入作出决定。在正常时期，地区资源的分配可能不会影响公民的福利，但在一个依赖雨水灌溉的农业的国家经常面临长期短缺的情况下，地区对土地和水的使用权力成为一个关键问题。为了评估埃塞俄比亚社区冲突的起因，该项目将编制在所有地区发现的冲突的数据集，并在两年期间对选定的两个地区进行人种学研究。首先，该项目将利用政府和非政府信息来源收集1995至2006年间埃塞俄比亚550个地区的地方冲突数据。地区一级的数据将允许进行统计分析，以测试暴力事件的爆发是否可归因于体制、人口或经济因素。第二，该项目将使用地区一级的数据集来确定两个地区进行深入的人种学研究。将与选定社区的成员组织面谈和重点小组，以确定在实践中，行政权力、人口压力和资源限制如何加剧群体之间的恐惧或竞争。这些人种学研究将进一步有助于确定如何在当地社会文化背景下理解社区冲突事件，这将压倒传统的争端解决机制，并可能造成反复发生的暴力循环。该项目关系到非洲和其他发展中地区国家的稳定，这些国家与埃塞俄比亚有许多共同的经济和政治特征。它的研究将直接涉及权力下放改革的影响，这种改革经常被宣传为解决多民族国家资源竞争的一种体制解决方案。然而，权力下放如何影响群体间暴力的爆发，特别是当这些改革可以带来地方一级的权力重新调整时，仍有待说明。该项目的研究结果将有助于更好地理解机构变化如何与脆弱国家的人口和资源压力相互作用。从这项研究中得出的经验教训将使学者和政策制定者能够制定更适合防止社区冲突的体制改革，这些冲突往往恶化为复杂的人道主义危机。

Under what conditions does violence erupt in multiethnic communities? Why does conflict break out between groups in some communities but not in others? Such questions are investigated through a study of communal conflicts in Ethiopia, a poor country where local order often breaks down as neighboring groups take up arms to resolve their disputes. By examining patterns of conflict at the district level, this research project aims to explain how institutions of local governance influence tensions produced by social divides and resource scarcity. Specifically, this study examines to what extent the outbreak of violence depends on the representation of different groups in district-level administration and the intensity of weather-related shocks to local crop production or animal rearing.Ethiopia provides an ideal context for studying how communal conflicts arise through the interaction between institutions, identities, and resources. While the country's districts vary considerably in levels of ethnic diversity and land productivity, decentralizing reforms adopted in the past 15 years have empowered all districts to make decisions over budget expenditures, land use, and agricultural inputs. The distribution of district resources may not affect the welfare of citizens during normal times, but a district's authority over land and water use becomes a critical issue during the prolonged periods of scarcity often confronted in a country that depends on rain-fed agriculture. Whether local groups monopolize or share control of district administration could therefore influence the outbreak of violence between them.To assess the causes of communal conflict in Ethiopia, this project will develop a dataset of conflicts found in all districts and undertake ethnographic studies of two selected districts over a two-year period. First, the project will draw on government and non-government sources of information to assemble a dataset of local conflicts across Ethiopia's 550 districts between 1995 and 2006. The district-level data will allow for a statistical analysis that tests whether the outbreak of violence can be attributed to institutional, demographic, or economic factors. Second, the project will use the district-level dataset to identify two districts for in-depth ethnographic study. Interviews and focus groups will be organized with members of selected communities to establish how, in practice, administrative authority, demographic pressures, and resource constraints heighten fear or competition between groups. These ethnographic studies will further help to establish how episodes of communal conflict are understood in their local socio-cultural context, overwhelming traditional mechanisms of dispute resolution and possibly creating cycles of recurrent violence. This project is relevant to the stability of countries in Africa and other developing regions, which share many of Ethiopia's economic and political characteristics. Its research will directly address the impact of decentralizing reforms, which are often promoted as an institutional solution to the competition over resources in multiethnic countries. Yet, it remains to be shown how decentralization affects the outbreak of violence between groups, particularly when those reforms can bring about a realignment of power at the local level. This project's findings will provide a better understanding of how institutional changes interact with demographic and resource pressures in fragile states. The lessons derived from this research will permit scholars and policymakers to craft institutional reforms better suited to preventing communal conflicts that often degenerate into complex humanitarian crises.