Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Building Peace Through Institutions? Revisiting the Logic of Institutional Engineering in Divided Societies Through Experiments

在严重分裂的社会中，政治机构的最佳设计是什么？哪些体制安排最适合缓解族裔紧张局势，避免冲突重演？这场辩论围绕着阿伦德·利法特和唐纳德·霍洛维茨的开创性著作开创的两个主要范式展开，这两个范式的假设、预期和建议都不同，以减轻种族冲突的可能性。在缺乏将政治机构与族裔冲突联系起来的明确因果机制的情况下，本研究强调了选举呼吁作为与分裂社会中的冲突密切相关的关键变量的作用，并认为这两种理论确实可以在更广泛和更富有成效的体制框架中共存。这个项目通过一种新的实验方法提供了经验证据，该方法专门设计来解决人们对实验室以外结果有效性的担忧。该项目做出了几项贡献。从理论上讲，在霍洛维茨和利法特的开创性工作三十年后，这项研究构成了对种族冲突理解的直接进步，并将是为检验这些理论而克服经验挑战的首批贡献之一。此外，它还提供了一个重要的方法进步，因为它有助于评估使用实验室实验来了解真实世界的条件。通过对学生受试者、纽约市的种族社区和战后布隆迪的种族群体重复相同的实验，可以评估实验室实验的结果可以推广到更广泛的人群的程度。这项工作对更广泛的民族政治文献也很有意义，因为它为政治机构作为民族身份变化的推动者的作用提供了必要的经验支持，并为这些理论提供了新的因果机制。美国的少数群体以及布隆迪以前被排除在外的民族的参与也促进了代表性不足的群体参与这项研究。但该项目的影响更广泛，因为其结果将对政策制定产生重大影响。围绕冲突后环境中不同治理选择的影响的不确定性往往迫使国际社会创造性地即兴重建一个分裂的社会。像巴尔干这样的国家本可以从过去有效处理其种族紧张局势的成熟理论处方中受益，而且很明显，伊拉克、阿富汗或布隆迪等国可以立即受益于关于建设和平努力的明确和可靠的建议，以改变它们在实现持久和平的成功道路上的严重分歧。

What is the optimal design for political institutions in deeply divided societies? Which institutional arrangements are best fit to mitigate ethnic tensions and avoid the recurrence of conflicts? The debate revolves around two main paradigms initiated by the seminal works of Arend Lijphart and Donald Horowitz, which differ in their assumptions, expectations, and recommendations to mitigate the potential for ethnic conflict. In the absence of a clear causal mechanism linking political institutions to ethnic conflict, this study stresses the role of electoral appeals as a key variable that is closely tied to conflict in divided societies, and argues that those two theories can indeed coexist in a broader and more fruitful institutional framework. This project provides empirical evidence through a novel experimental approach, specifically designed to address concerns about the validity of results beyond the laboratory. The project makes several contributions. Theoretically, this study constitutes an immediate advancement in the understanding of ethnic conflict three decades after the pioneering work by Horowitz and Lijphart, and will be among the first contributions to overcome empirical challenges for testing those theories. Furthermore it provides an important methodological advancement, as it helps to evaluate the use of laboratory experiment to understand real-world conditions. By replicating the same experiment on student subjects, ethnic communities from New York City, and ethnic groups in post-war Burundi, it is possible to evaluate the extent to which results from laboratory experiment can be generalized to a broader population. This work is also of great interest for the larger literature in ethnic politics, as it provides needed empirical support for the role of political institutions as agents of change of ethnic identities, and it enriches those theories with new causal mechanisms. The involvement of minority groups in the US, as well as ethnic groups previously excluded from power in Burundi, also fosters the participation of under-represented groups in the study.But the impact of the project is broader, as its results will have a substantial impact for policy formulation. The uncertainty surrounding the impact of different governance choices in post-conflict environments has often forced the international community to creatively improvise to rebuild a divided society. Cases like the Balkans would have benefited from well-established theoretical prescriptions for coping effectively with their ethnic tensions in the past, and it is apparent how countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Burundi could immediately benefit from clear and reliable recommendations for peace-building efforts, in order to transform their their deep divisions on a successful path for a durable peace.