Background
Rebuilding social and economic order in conflict and post-conflict areas will remain critical tasks for the United States and our allies as we seek to defeat violent organizations and prevent the emergence of new non-state threats.
Three development-oriented policies dominate efforts to enhance social and economic order: (1) providing security assistance to friendly states; (2) encouraging inclusive governance; and (3) improving the population’s economic welfare. These policies are universally embraced yet not methodically evaluated. Recent research shows that these policies, while often productive, may also be mutually undermining in some contexts or phases of conflict, especially if improperly sequenced.
Understanding the optimal mix of policies, coercive and benign, in a given context requires an integrated theory of the relationship between development and political violence. Lacking an intergrated theory, U.S. decision makers combating terrorism and political violence cannot explicitly consider the interactions between policies. An integrated theory would lead to better doctrine, allowing limited development resources to be applied optimally to combat violence and informing future policies by better incorporating tactical and strategic lessons from current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Social scientists have the tools to address these questions, yet little empirical research has focused on political violence in poorly governed spaces, especially in its contemporary form—characterized by politically active, violent religious radicals.
The conference will allow leading scholars, including practitioners, to identify, discuss and direct research efforts at the most pressing open questions in the field. It will be organized as a symposium on two important recent surveys of the literature on rebellion, Miguel and Blattman (2008), and Fearon (2009). It follows on two successful multidisciplinary academic conferences organized by IGCC that integrated military and government participants, Terrorist Organizations in 2007 in La Jolla and Political Violence in 2008 at Stanford (co-organized with CASBS at Stanford).
Scholars will be joined by the participants in IGCC's Governance, Development and Political Violence workshop which is designed to introduce young researchers and practitioners to the theoretical tools, practical skills, background, data, and contacts they will need to carry out fresh research on these topics.
This activity is part of "Terrorism, Development and Governance," a multi-year research grant funded by the U.S. Department of Defense through the peer-reviewed Minerva Initiative.
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