IBSS: Religious Infusion and Asymmetric Group Conflict

这个跨学科的研究项目将研究宗教仪式、教义和背景的差异如何塑造宗教渗透到私人和公共生活的许多方面的群体的动机和能力，有时导致这些群体发起与更强大的群体的冲突。该项目将通过测试关于宗教可能形成冲突的不同机制的假设，加强对宗教、种族和冲突的基本理解。它将扩展和整合政治学，经济学，人类学和社会心理学的理论观点，将宗教与冲突联系起来。它还将评估一些受宗教影响的低权力群体与看似强大得多的群体发生不对称冲突的动机和过程。该项目将为美国和国际机构和组织提供见解和信息，了解不同群体在宗教灌输方面的差异，以及这些差异如何转化为群体冲突，从而帮助填补这方面的重大知识空白。这些见解将有助于决策者和从业者识别产生或缓解冲突的因素。正如最近的事件所表明的那样，加强对权力悬殊的群体之间不对称冲突的原因、促成因素和抑制因素的理解，对加强美国和其他国家的国家安全具有重要意义。该项目还将在一系列不同的环境中为学生提供跨学科的教育和培训机会。研究人员将使用三种互补的方法来进行这个项目，以测试九种假设，这些假设是关于宗教仪式、教义和背景的差异如何影响弱小的、宗教信仰浓厚的群体发起与强大群体冲突的动机和能力。他们将进行案例研究，比较中东和南亚的两个跨国穆斯林族群（伊朗、伊拉克、叙利亚和土耳其的库尔德人和伊朗、阿富汗和巴基斯坦的俾路支人）。他们将对全球40个资源相对匮乏的群体进行定性比较分析，并将在美国和印度进行实验室实验。这些方法将阐明造成资源贫乏、宗教信仰丰富的群体参与不对称冲突的因素，并有助于确定宗教信仰丰富可能导致更和平结果的情况。本项目由美国国家科学基金会跨学科行为与社会科学研究（IBSS）竞赛资助。

This interdisciplinary research project will examine how differences in religious ritual, doctrine, and context shape the motivations and capacities of groups in which religion permeates many aspects of private and public life, sometimes leading those groups to initiate conflict against stronger groups. The project will enhance basic understanding about religion, ethnicity, and conflict by testing hypotheses about different mechanisms through which religion may shape conflict. It will extend and integrate theoretical perspectives in political science, economics, anthropology, and social psychology that connect religion and conflict. It also will assess the motivations and processes though which some religiously infused, low-power groups engage in asymmetrical conflict against groups that seemingly are much more powerful. The project will help fill a significant gap in knowledge for U.S. and international agencies and organizations by providing insights and information regarding the ways in which groups differ in their religious infusion and how these differences translate into group conflict. These insights will assist policy makers and practitioners in identifying factors that create or mitigate conflicts. As recent events have demonstrated, enhanced understanding of the causes, facilitators, and inhibitors of asymmetric conflict between groups having great disparity in power has great significance for enhancing the national security of the U.S. and other nations. The project also will provide interdisciplinary education and training opportunities for students in a range of different settings.The investigators will conduct this project using three complementary methods in order to test nine hypotheses about the ways through which differences in religious ritual, doctrine, and context affect the motivations and capacities of weak, religiously infused groups to initiate conflict against stronger groups. They will conduct case studies comparing two transnational Muslim ethnic groups in the Middle East and South Asia (the Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and the Baluchi in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). They will conduct qualitative comparative analyses of 40 relatively resource-weak groups around the world, and they will conduct laboratory-based experimentation in the U.S. and India. These approaches will elucidate the factors shaping the circumstances in which resource-poor, religiously infused groups engage in asymmetric conflict, and they will facilitate identification of the circumstances in which religious infusion may lead to more peaceful outcomes. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.