Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Location in Resource Rent Distribution and the Projection of Power in Africa

在社会科学中，石油和钻石等自然资源的存在往往会导致有害的结果，包括经济增长缓慢，非民主政府和国内冲突。虽然人们对石油和钻石是如何导致糟糕的经济和治理结果的理解相对较好，但这些因素与内战的出现之间的关系却不太清楚。尼日利亚、印度尼西亚、苏丹和刚果民主共和国经常被视为争夺地下资源所在地区的战争的例子。这个项目表明，实际上内战不太可能发生在这些资源丰富的地区，而是发生在远离油井和钻石矿的资源丰富国家的外围地区。该项目旨在通过对尼日利亚及其内部两个反叛组织（一个在资源丰富的南部，另一个在资源贫乏的东北部）的案例研究来确定这可能是为什么。该项目给出的解释集中在资源地区居民的抗议和破坏威胁上，这导致国家利用自然资源的收入收买那些有威胁的团体，并向该地区派遣额外的军事力量，以防止剩余的威胁。首先，该项目将通过对米其林轮胎公司从1960年至今的撒哈拉以南非洲地图进行数字化和编码，开发一个新的次国家地区国家军事力量数据集，以检验军事力量的论点。其次，访谈将构成案例研究，比较尼日利亚资源丰富地区和资源贫乏地区的两个反叛团体，以进一步检验驱动资源冲突关系的机制理论。该项目的知识价值植根于其新颖的理论和方法贡献。与许多现有的研究不同，该项目的理论不仅预测了哪些国家会发生内战，还预测了这些国家的哪些地方会发生内战，并解释了冲突为什么会发生在这些地方。这项研究在方法论上也是新颖的。它将把在西非收集的定性证据与来自各州或省份的跨区域数据的定量证据结合起来，以确定资源丰富的国家内战的发生地点。很少有政治学研究利用次国家层面的定量证据，很少有研究使用来自多个国家的跨区域证据。除了智力上的贡献，这个项目还有几个更广泛的影响。道路数据集——将目前现有数据的覆盖范围扩大到1960年——将大大改善对非洲的定量研究。覆盖非洲大陆的可靠数据少之又少，对社会科学家具有实质性重要性的数据就更少了。例如，道路是假设的，用来绘制国家权力和经济活动随时间的预测图。整个数据集将公开传播。捐助资金、非政府组织的时间和外交行动往往旨在帮助各国避免新的自然财富带来的有害影响。对各国政府应对新资源的方式进行研究，将为避免新资源的出现提供新的思路。作者旨在强调对内战威胁可能发生地点的错误认识，以及避免内战威胁的三条处方。首先，社会科学家的主要建议通常是提高收入透明度。这一理论表明，这远不如披露政府如何支出以及（至关重要的）在哪里支出来得重要。其次，地区经济平等可能是至关重要的，因此可以束缚政府的手脚，以促进收入的公平分配，并利用捐赠资金来消除差距。最后，有关安全部队部署效果的证据可能有助于防止权力真空，这种真空被认为会导致叛乱。

It is well established in the social sciences that the presence of natural resources like oil and diamonds often leads to pernicious outcomes including sluggish economic growth, non-democratic governments, and civil conflict. Though it is relatively well-understood how oil and diamonds cause bad economic and governance outcomes, it is much less clear how these factors are related to the emergence of civil wars. Nigeria, Indonesia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are often held up as examples of wars over the territory where resources come out of the ground. This project clarifies that in fact civil wars are less likely to take place in these resource-rich regions, and instead take place far away from oil wells and diamond mines in peripheral parts of resource-rich countries. The project aims to identify through a case study of Nigeria and two rebel groups within it, one in the resource-rich South and one in the resource-poor Northeast, why this might be. The explanation developed in the project centers on the threat of protest and sabotage by residents in the resource region, which leads the state to use revenues from natural resources to buy off those threatening groups and to send additional military forces to the region to forestall remaining threats. The project will, first, develop a new dataset of state military power in sub-national regions by digitizing and coding Michelin Tire Company maps of sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to present to test the military forces argument. Second, interviews would make up case studies comparing two rebel groups, one in a resource-rich and one in a resource-poor region in Nigeria, to further test the theory of the mechanisms driving the resource-conflict relationship. The project's intellectual merit is rooted in its novel theoretical and methodological contributions. Unlike many existing studies, the project's theory predicts not only in which countries civil war will take place, but where within the countries, and an explanation for why conflicts take place in these places. The research is also novel methodologically. It will combine qualitative evidence collected in West Africa with quantitative evidence from cross-regional data across states or provinces on the location of civil wars within resource-rich states. Few studies in political science leverage quantitative evidence at the sub-national level, and a very few use cross-regional evidence from multiple countries.In addition to the intellectual contribution, the project has several broader impacts. The roads dataset - extending the coverage of existing data available only for the present back to 1960 - would substantially improve quantitative research on Africa. There are few reliable data covering the continent, and fewer still of substantive importance for social scientists. Roads are hypothesized, for example, to chart the projection of state power and economic activity over time. The entire dataset would be publicly disseminated. Donor funds, NGO time, and diplomatic action often aims to help states avoid the pernicious effects of new natural wealth. A study of the way governments respond to the new resources would inform new efforts to avoid them. The author aims to highlight flawed perceptions of the likely location of civil war threats, and three prescriptions to avoid them. First, social scientists' main advice is often revenue transparency. The theory developed suggests that is not nearly as important as disclosing how governments spend it and, critically, where. Second, regional economic equality may be critical, so the governments' hands could be tied to promote distributing revenue equally, and donor funds used to smooth the gaps. Finally, evidence on the effects of security force deployments could help prevent the power vacuums that are hypothesized to enable rebellion.