Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Protest, Consensus, and Multicultural Democracy

民主国家为不同的选民服务，表现出社会和文化因素的巨大差异。为了确保不同社会行为者之间的和平共处，达成和维护共识是民主政府的优先事项。虽然可以就几乎任何问题达成共识，但资源管理经常是民主决策的目标，对不同的利益攸关方有不同的影响。这篇博士论文研究了不同的社会群体农村社区，城市国家官僚和企业官员试图达成协议的复杂问题所产生的变化，资源管理的方法。研究如何以及在什么条件下可以在一个多元化的社会达成共识，对于理解不同的人如何持有不同的世界观，生活方式和自我表达方式共存是至关重要的。该项目支持培训美国-研究生和研究结果将广泛传播。研究人员将调查不同文化群体在寻求资源管理政策共识时所采用的策略和叙事，在这种背景下，官员们正在共同努力建立和平的审议空间。通过将农村和土著领导人、政府官员和公司代表聚集在一起，这些审议空间是研究不同社会行为者如何相互达成协议的理想场所。这项研究结合了面对面和数字定性方法来记录和分析来自完全不同的文化和社会经济背景的人们奋进达成协议的审议空间。通过对农村社区领导人，居民和政府官员的采访，博士生将调查文化和社会经济差异是否以及如何塑造政治沟通，以及如何在资源分配的分裂问题上达成共识。 这项研究的结果将阐明不同群体在追求共同的政治立场时部署的战略范围--从审议到社会抗议，同时为关于共识在民主政治中所起作用的社会科学理论做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Democracies serve heterogeneous constituents, expressing significant variation in social and cultural factors. To ensure peaceful coexistence between different social actors, reaching and preserving consensus is a priority for democratic governments. Although consensus may be pursued on virtually any issue, resource management is a frequent target of democratic policy making, with different implications for different stakeholders. This doctoral dissertation research examines how different social groups—rural communities, urban state bureaucrats, and corporate officials—attempt to reach agreements on complex issues arising from variation in approaches to resource management. Examining how and under what conditions consensus may be reached in a diverse society is essential to understanding how different peoples holding varied worldviews, modes of living, and means of self-expression co-exist. The project supports the training of a U.S.-based graduate student and findings will be broadly disseminated. The researchers will investigate the strategies and narratives employed by culturally distinct groups in pursuit of consensus over resource management policies in a context where officials are making a concerted effort to establish peaceful spaces of deliberation. By bringing together rural and Indigenous leaders, government officials, and company representatives, these spaces of deliberation are an ideal site for examining how different social actors pursue agreement with one another. This research combines in-person and digital qualitative methods to document and analyze the spaces of deliberation in which people from radically different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds endeavor to reach agreements with one another. Through interviews with rural community leaders, residents, and government bureaucrats, the doctoral student will investigate whether and how cultural and socioeconomic differences shape political communication and how consensus is pursued on divisive questions of resource distribution. Findings from this research will illuminate the spectrum of strategies—from deliberation to social protest—that different groups deploy in pursuit of shared political ground while contributing to social science theories about the role consensus plays in democratic politics.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.