Competition in a Post-conflict Landscape

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。研究内战后果的社会科学家发现，“战后”并不一定意味着“冲突后”。在官方和解进程向前推进的同时，随着昔日的对手在战后格局中争夺地位，冲突可能会秘密进行。该奖项支持的研究提出，这种现象是否不可避免：对抗的持续存在是否是路径依赖的一个例子？路径依赖是一种理论，认为过去制定了制度、技术和认知结构和模式，这些结构和模式对未来的行为起着约束作用。但问题仍然存在，这些约束行为是如何发生的，这些约束行为是如何出现的，强化它们的反馈机制，以及它们可以在多大程度上被打断和重定向。冲突后社会为解决这些问题提供了一个独特的机会，因为社会变革的努力、对这些努力的抵制以及结果可以在日常生活的微观过程中得到追踪。这项研究的发现对于研究政策实施障碍的理论家和希望政策成功的决策者来说非常重要。该研究将由法律人类学家罗伯特·海登博士（匹兹堡大学）进行。这位研究人员已经确定冲突后的波斯尼亚-黑塞哥维那是进行这项研究的合适地点。内战结束后（1992-1995），根据宪法将领土划分为几个地区，在每个地区，三个相互竞争的民族-宗教社区中的一个在人口上占主导地位，尽管存在多个社区。基础科学研究的问题是，在新出现的群体间关系中是否存在路径依赖的证据。研究人员将收集有关遗产权利的主张和被破坏景观的重建的数据，以检验重建和替换是战略性的而不是中性的，它们加强了战前的关系而不是创造新的关系的假设。研究员和他的团队将收集现场破坏和重建的数据；地点重要性和主导地位的定量量度，包括中心性和大小；以及社区互动。他们将采用混合方法，包括档案研究、官方记录分析、利益相关者访谈和地理空间映射。主要的焦点将是历史上敌对的社区，但样本也将包括一个中立的对照组。这项研究将支持国际研究合作，并为学生提供机会。研究结果将丰富冲突后行为改变约束的社会科学理论，并通过更好地理解多民族社会中的冲突持续性，为国家安全利益服务。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Social scientists who study the aftermath of civil war have found that "post-war" does not necessarily mean "post-conflict." While official reconciliation processes move forward, conflict may be pursued covertly as former adversaries jockey for position in post-war landscapes. The research supported by this award asks if this phenomenon is inevitable: is the persistence of antagonism an example of path dependency? Path dependency is the theory that the past lays down institutional, technological, and cognitive structures and patterns that act as constraints on future behaviors. But questions remain about how this happens, how these constrained behaviors emerge, the feedback mechanisms that reinforce them, and the degree to which they can be interrupted and redirected. Post-conflict societies provide a unique opportunity to address these questions because efforts at social change, resistance to these efforts, and outcomes can be tracked in the micro-processes of daily life. Findings from this research will be important for theorists studying barriers to policy implementation and for policy makers who want their policies to succeed. The research will be conducted by legal anthropologist, Dr. Robert Hayden (University of Pittsburgh). The researcher has identified post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina as an appropriate site to conduct the research. After the civil war (1992-1995), the territory was divided constitutionally into regions, in each of which one of the three competing ethno-religious communities is dominant demographically although multiple communities are present. The basic science research question is whether there is evidence of path dependence in newly emerging intergroup relationships. The researcher will collect data on claims of heritage rights and the recreation of destroyed landscapes to test the hypothesis that reconstruction and replacement have been strategic rather than neutral and that they reinforce pre-war relationships rather than creating new ones. The researcher and his team will collect data on site destruction and rebuilding; quantitative measures of site importance and dominance, including centrality and size; and community interactions. They will employ a mixed-methods approach including archival research, analysis of official records, stakeholder interviews, and geo-spatial mappings. The primary focus will be historically antagonistic communities but the sample also will include a neutral control group. The research will support international research collaborations and opportunities for students. The results of the research will enrich social science theory of constraints on behavioral modifications in post-conflict contexts, and will serve interests of national security through better understanding of conflict persistence in multi-ethnic societies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.