Doctoral Dissertation Research: Cooperative Economic Projects and Peacebuilding

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

General Abstract This research investigates mechanisms that reduce violence and prejudice between groups currently involved in a violent conflict. Scholars, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) develop and implement strategies designed to create positive interactions between members of conflicting groups as means to prevent violence. These strategies, however, are not tested among groups currently engaged in conflict, which prevents insight into possible effects of particular strategies -- whether they serve to prevent violence or escalate conflict. This project initiates economic collaboration between two conflicting groups to study how intergroup contact might reduce intergroup prejudice. To do so, this study utilizes a behavioral game as means to gain a measure of intergroup prejudice. The researcher devises a new way to measure prejudice through the observation altruistic or selfish behavior during structured intergroup interactions, instead of the more prevalent survey-based procedure. The project is implemented with the assistance of a peace-building NGO in an area marked by significant intergroup violence between farmers and animal herders, which results in thousands of deaths per year, high levels of food insecurity, significant property destruction, and the displacement of families and communities. Results from the study will provide valuable insight to inform scholars and policymakers about effective strategies to prevent violence between groups. Technical Abstract This research focuses on strategies to reduce violence between conflicting groups. In particular, it works with a peace-building NGO program that developed such a strategy derived from a "contact hypothesis." This approach posits that structured interactions between members of competing groups is the most effective means of reducing intergroup prejudice. Numerous studies confirm that intergroup interactions can reduce prejudice. Experiences with outgroups has been shown to remove negative stereotypes and allow the prejudicial individual to re-conceptualize the outgroup. Recent studies, however, also conclude that social contact between groups involved in conflict does not always reduce prejudice, and may even increase it. Positive interactions do not always generalize to the entire outgroup, and can increase prejudice when such positive interaction conflicts with an individual's strongly held prejudicial beliefs. This project contributes to the research intergroup contact and prejudice reduction by testing if and how sustained economic collaboration might reduce prejudice between conflicting groups. An additional and equally important contribution of this project is a novel and new procedure to measure of prejudice in the field. Prejudice is typically measured via survey responses, which raises questions with respect to the reliability of the measure. Instead of a survey-based measure, this study evaluates prejudice directly by observing behavior in a public goods game played between farmers and animal herders, groups engaged in violent conflict. This project offers an empirical test of contact theory to reduce prejudice between conflicting groups and a novel measure of prejudice. Its findings will benefit scholars, policymakers, and NGOs in evaluating the effectiveness of their conflict prevention and prejudice reduction strategies.