Let ‘Em Rot: Understanding Public Punitiveness and Forgiveness Toward OffendersShadd Maruna, Criminology, Northwestern UniversityResearch Grant, 2003, 2004 The University of Cambridge Public Opinion Project (UCPOP) is an investigation into individual variation in punitive attitudes towards offenders. We are interested in the psychosocial characteristics of individuals who hold highly punitive attitudes (e.g., support for the death penalty, corporal punishment, and longer prison sentences) and those who decidedly do not. The purpose of the project is to better understand the nature and source of these differences in punitive views. In doing so, it is hoped that this study might contribute towards humanizing the “punitive public” and lifting the conversation around crime and public opinion beyond the stereotypes that plague all sides of the debate (e.g., notions of “authoritarian, ignorant cowboys” in favor of the death penalty and “bleeding-heart elites” in opposition). The aim ultimately is to transcend the usual predictors of punitiveness and explore the "psychological functions" of these attitudes from the perspective of the "whole person." We argue that understanding the nature of individual punitiveness requires an exploration into individuals’ self-identities, worldviews, and personal biographies (see Gaubatz, 1995; Hochschild, 1981). In particular, a hermeneutic enquiry into punitiveness and identity may be useful for untangling people’s conscious contradictions and internal inconsistencies regarding attitudes towards crime and punishment that may be contributing to discrepancies in survey-based studies of the phenomena. This study, then, explicitly seeks to complement and supplement the considerable theoretical work in the sociology of punishment (e.g., Garland, 2001) and the wealth of survey research on punitive attitudes based on public opinion polling (e.g., Hough & Roberts, 1998). The aim ultimately is to transcend the usual predictors of punitiveness and explore the “psychological functions” of these attitudes from the perspective of the “whole person.” This project consists of three separate parts. The first step is a brief survey of households in the UK that serves the dual purpose of testing some basic correlates of punitive attitudes and identifying these two samples of individuals who can be studied more in depth. Next, two small samples (one consisting of individuals holding strongly punitive views and the other of strongly nonpunitive respondents) will be interviewed in depth in order to generate grounded hypotheses regarding the psychology behind these attitudes. Finally, these hypotheses will be “tested” with larger samples of both “types” using a mixed nomothetic-idiographic strategy that will allow for the development of quantitative indices derived from qualitative information (see Maruna, 2001). BibliographyGarland, David (2001). The Culture of Control. Chicago: University of Chicago.Gaubatz, Kathyrn Taylor (1995). Crime In The Public Mind. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Hochschild, Jennifer L. (1981). What's Fair? American Beliefs about Distributive Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.Hough, Mike and Julian Roberts (1998). Attitudes to Punishment: Findings from the British Crime Survey. London: Home Office. Maruna, Shadd (2001). Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Books.
Neuropharmacology of Female AggressionRobert L. Meisel, Psychology, Purdue UniversityResearch Grant, 1996 Aggression is a normal component of the social behaviors of female mammals, including women. Despite the occurrence of aggression among females, relatively little research has focused on biological mechanisms regulating female aggression. To the contrary, most models of aggression in both animals and humans focus on a context in which males are aggressive, but females are not. This has lead to several critical errors in our understanding of aggression in females. The first error has been the perpetuation of the myth that there is a sex difference in aggression. This “sex difference” is more appropriately described in differences in the form in which aggression occurs and in the context in which individuals will express aggression. Following from this has been the focus on biological processes controlling aggression. Again, this has typically been a biology of male aggression. For example, we found that a member of a group of drugs called “serenics” (reducing aggression by making people serene) was very effective in reducing aggression in male hamsters, but was ineffective in altering aggression in female hamsters. We determined that progesterone and related hormones do indeed act in the brain to inhibit aggression. So what would regulate aggression in females? In rodents, it is clear that the release of hormones from the ovary (i.e., estrogen and progesterone) eliminates female aggression. In contrast, during the phases of the reproductive cycle when hormone levels are low, or following surgical removal of the ovaries, aggression is markedly elevated. We focused on the role of progesterone in the inhibition of aggression in female hamsters, because this hormone suggests possibilities for basic research that may lead to therapeutic treatments for anxiety and aggression in women. In recent years it has become clear that hormones like progesterone when produced in the brain act in a similar fashion to a class of minor tranquilizers, the benzodiazepines (e.g., valium). The goal of this research project was to examine conditions in which progesterone and related hormones would inhibit aggression using female hamsters as the model system. In fact, we determined that progesterone and related hormones do indeed act in the brain to inhibit aggression. The advantage of using these hormones as a basis for developing drug therapies for aggression and anxiety in females is that these naturally occurring substances could prove to be effective in women with fewer side effects than would traditional drug therapies. BibliographyKohlert, J.G. and Meisel, R.L. Inhibition of aggression by progesterone and its metabolites in female Syrian hamsters. Aggressive Behavior, 27, 372-381, 2001.
Drugs, Violence, and National Honor: British Foreign Policy and the Opium Crisis, 1833–1840Glenn Melancon, History, Southeastern Oklahoma State UniversityResearch Grant, 1998 The first Opium War (1840–1842) was a defining moment in Anglo-Chinese relations, and since the 1840s the histories of its origins have tended to be straightforward narratives suggesting that the British cabinet turned to its military to protect opium sales and to force open China trade. Whilst the monetary aspects of the war cannot be ignored, this book argues that economic interests should not overshadow another important aspect of British foreign policy—honor and shame. British cabinet officials worried less about the danger to economic interests than the threat to their honor and the possible loss of power in Parliament. Palmerston’s government recognized that failure to act with honor generated public outrage in the form of petitions to parliament and loss of votes, and as a result was at pains to take such considerations into account when making policy. Accordingly, British cabinet officials worried less about the danger to economic interests than the threat to their honor and the possible loss of power in Parliament. The decision to wage a drug war, however, made the government vulnerable to charges of immorality, creating the need to justify the war by claiming it was acting to protect British national honor. BibliographyMelancon, Glenn. Opium and Honour: The British Cabinet's Decision to Wage War on China, 1839-1840, International History Review, vol. 21.3 (December 1999): 855-874.Melancon, Glenn, Peaceful Intentions: The First British Trade Commission in China, 1833-1835, Historical Research: The Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 73, no. 180 (February 2000): 33-47.
The World Crisis: 1635–1665Geoffrey Parker, History, The Ohio State UniversityResearch Grant, 2001, 2002 In the mid-seventeenth century, a series of violent economic, social, intellectual and political upheavals afflicted most regions of this planet. Although not the only known global catastrophe, it was the first to leave abundant records worldwide, and its scale defies description. The economic and social crisis led to the death of millions and forced millions more to live in misery. At the same time, a worldwide wave of violence, aggression, rebellion and war toppled or threatened governments around the world. To cite just the most prominent events: in China, the last Ming emperor committed suicide when rebels seized his capital (1644) and it took forty years of civil war for a new dynasty (the Qing) to restore order. In 1648, major revolts began in both Russia and Poland while in Istanbul the Ottoman Sultan was murdered. In Britain, after seven years of civil war, rebels tried and executed King Charles I in 1649, provoking a new round of revolts in Scotland and the Anglo-Atlantic. Waves of rebellions almost overwhelmed both the French and Spanish Monarchies in the 1640s. Coincidence cannot explain so many simultaneous eruptions of violence and revolution around the globe: what, then, were its causes and why did it affect some areas far more than others? My explanation involves a combination of five factors: a sudden episode of “global cooling”; the emergence of vulnerable areas of economic specialization; a sharp increase in religious and fiscal pressure by many (but not all) governments; the crumbling of the prevailing demographic regime; and the emergence of radical new ideologies. The interplay of these five elements produced major crises worldwide. My explanation involves a combination of five factors: a sudden episode of "global cooling"; the emergence of vulnerable areas of economic specialization; a sharp increase in religious and fiscal pressure by many (but not all) governments; the crumbling of the prevailing demographic regime; and the emergence of radical new ideologies. Finally, what were the consequences of the crisis and what “lessons” can we learn? Searching for contemporary “relevance” in events that occurred 350 years ago is fraught with danger; but since the mid-seventeenth century crisis was the only occasion when a sudden shift in the world’s weather seriously affected human life and left a copious record (archeological and climatic as well as historical), historians have a duty to ask these questions. My book, which should be completed in mid-2004 and published in 2005, studies both the impact of severe climatic change on history and the ways in which specific political and economic decisions can produce war, revolution, catastrophe—and, in a few cases (such as Japan), peace.
Violent Territorialities and the Cultural Politics of Belonging in West Kalimantan IndonesiaNancy Lee Peluso, Society and the Environment, University of California, BerkeleyResearch Grant, 2002 I am writing a book that explores the cultural and territorial politics of violence, identity, and landscape in the western districts of West Kalimantan, in Indonesian Borneo. I am looking specifically at how violence has been related to resource extraction, land control, and the construction of ethnic and national identities. Based on my own fieldwork and archival research since 1990, the book will document and analyze the forms, contexts, and representations of violence, and how violence has reshaped access to and control over the agrarian environment. The violence cannot be separated from the specific historical and environmental conditions of the forested regions where the shaping and claiming of these agrarian landscapes have taken place. I will also examine the parallel ways that two sets of peoples have imagined, experienced, and constructed these landscapes—Chinese and Salako peoples, who have moved through and settled in this region for three centuries. In reviewing archival materials, newly available secondary materials, and my own field notes and collected documents, I have found that the region cannot be described as only Dayak or Indonesian. Rather, the landscapes that have emerged from this study have been layered landscapes, and their visibility or invisibility has much to do with the politics of representation and history. Violence in different historical moments has shaped these patterns of layering and the capacity to actually “know” or to “see” the landscape in particular ways. Moreover, the violence cannot be separated from the specific historical and environmental conditions of the forested regions where the shaping and claiming of these agrarian landscapes have taken place. From customary Dayak lands and fruit forests to Chinese gold mines and rubber or pepper farms, to vast networks of irrigated rice fields, to production forestry zones, to watershed protection reserves, to military staging grounds, to sites of ethnic violence, various types of claims have emerged here through the politics of landscape. Past claims to territory are preserved not only within the practices and memories of people, but written on the landscape itself. I will discuss why political and communal violence have occurred in some historical moments and not others, and how violence has erased some claims from the landscape while preserving others.
Happy Marriages: Civilizing Domestic Life in Costa Rica, 1850–1950Eugenia S. Rodríguez, History, University of Costa RicaResearch Grant, 1999, 2000 The purpose of this research project is to analyze the main divorce tendencies in Costa Rica between 1800 and 1950, and to what extent ideals of and attitudes toward marriage, divorce, gender relationships, and domestic violence were modified. During the colonial period and while the General Law of 1841 was in force (until 1887), only Christian marriage and church-approved or ecclesiastical divorce were legal. For the Catholic Church, marriage is a sacrament, a sacred undissolvable religious contract. Ecclesiastical divorce did not authorize dissolving the bond of matrimony, just separation without cohabiting. By the end of the nineteenth century, with the approval of civil marriage, separation, and divorce in the Civil Code of 1888, there is a secularization of the concept of marriage, conceived as a secular, civil, and temporary contract. As a result, couples that had infelicitous relationships had a legal instrument to dissolve their marriage, and the church lost its exclusive right to regulate the marital institution and sexual and domestic morality. Regarding the grounds for civil divorce, the following remained: women’s adultery, one spouse’s attempt to kill the other, extreme cruelty, and felony. However, in comparison to the grounds for ecclesiastical divorce established in the Code of 1841, the Civil Code of 1888 added as cause for divorce a “husband’s scandalous concubinage.” Unlike female adultery, masculine adultery was not legally penalized. Therefore, even when it was demonstrated that the husband had been unfaithful, this was not sufficient ground for divorce. It had to be proven beyond doubt that the husband lived with his concubine, being a cause of public scandal, moral misconduct, and family disintegration. The Penal Code of 1941 eliminated female adultery as a felony and reduced sanctions for murders of passion. Finally, the Family Code (1974) introduced no-fault divorce and equality of spouses with respect to adultery as grounds for civil divorce. In addition, the 1932 law introduced some further changes in the grounds for civil divorce. Although extreme cruelty was still considered grounds for divorce, the law eliminated felonies and added the husband’s attempt to prostitute his wife. Considering extreme cruelty but not serious offenses as grounds for divorce is the result of changes both in jurisprudence and of the fact that gender relationships and domestic violence were perceived as justifications to file for divorce. However, in all of the civil and penal codes, including the present one, a patriarchal gap has remained, since extreme cruelty and domestic violence are considered crimes similar to “injuries.” It is obvious that there are not enough records to allow us to know with certainty how many couples were unhappy and to what extent they opted for separation. However, the evidence found in the 273 spousal-conflict complaints and in the 1,239 cases of ecclesiastical and civil divorce for the 1800–1950 period strongly suggests that, faced with an unhappy relationship that did not fulfill the expectations of a marriage for love and companionship, couples tended to opt more often to file for divorce to legally dissolve the bond of matrimony. From 1800 to 1950, there was an increase in divorce suits in the 1840s. 62.2 percent of the total of divorce suits filed during this period—of which couples from San Jose filed 55.5 percent. In the whole Central Valley, the greatest number of cases was reported for the 1830–1850 period, especially in the five years between 1845 and 1850. This ascending rate of divorce took place within the larger expansion of the civil legal apparatus, which made it possible for women to have a legal instrument to denounce their husband’s abuses or to file for divorce. As a result, there was a visible and public sanction of marital conduct, a larger assimilation of the ideal of a loving and harmonious marriage, and an increase in suits due to spousal conflicts and divorce (Rodríguez 2000, 111–153). Between 1851 and 1889, divorce suits kept ascending, the 1870s being the decade with the largest number of divorces. Between 1851 and 1889, divorce suits kept ascending, the 1870s being the decade with the largest number of divorces, 40.2 percent out of a total of 281 suits for ecclesiastical divorce. Moreover, the increase in suits practically doubled between the 1860s (fifty-six suits) and the 1870s (131 suits). This upward trend is also corroborated in relation to the number of marriages and divorces filed. In fact, this ratio shifts from one divorce for each 16,104 marriages in the 1860s to one divorce for every 81.7 marriages during the 1870s. On the other hand, during the 1890–1950 period, there is a dramatic increase in civil divorce suits (98.9 percent out of 923 cases) and a dramatic decrease in ecclesiastical divorce suits (1.1 percent, only ten cases for the 1890–1919 period). This change may be explained, in part, by the serious conflict between the church and the state because of the anticlergy reform, which made it more difficult to present these suits. It could also have been influenced by Monsignor Thiel’s more aggressive policy for spreading the Catholic doctrine, the impact of the 1888 civil marriage, separation, and divorce reforms, and the Church’s propaganda and persecution campaigns against divorce. On the other hand, we find an increase in civil divorces, especially in the 1930s and 1940s (from 24.2 percent to 44.1 percent out of a total of 127 divorces by sentencing by repeal between 1900 and 1950). Finally, this research questions some historical myths about gender relationships and domestic violence. These myths are: 1) that violence was considered a “natural” part of marriage relationships rather than a practice constructed and transformed historically and in everyday life; 2) that extreme cruelty of wife beating was always accepted by society; 3) that domestic violence was an exclusive practice of men from popular sectors; and 4) that wives were passive victims of patriarchal dominance incapable of resisting and impugning male dominance. It is argued that the concept of domestic violence was constructed and transformed historically. The ecclesiastical and civil authorities allowed husbands to “correct” their wives with moderate violence if they would not submit. So, it was accepted as a “natural” condition of marriage and in the best interests of the family that wives had to endure verbal, emotional, economic, material and sexual abuse from their husbands. However, since the first half of the nineteenth century, such notions suffered a gradual reconceptualization by legally punishing the extreme cruelty exerted by husbands over their wives and the effects of violence, like injuries causing temporary or permanent physical incapacity to work. So, society has gradually sanctioned domestic violence more stringently. Nevertheless, recent studies have shown that the penal system and the existing regulations in the Penal Code of 1971 still underestimate violence against women, by emphasizing on physical violence. As a result, it could be stated that, as in the past, today a spouse’s abuse is still associated with “serious offenses.” Such restricted definition of domestic violence does not include the infliction of emotional, psychological, sexual and economic/material damage. Thus, most of the main kind of abuse and domestic violence are considered a “natural condition” of marriage.
Kidnapping in ColombiaMauricio Rubio, Economics, University of Carlos III, MadridResearch Grant, 2002 The goal of the project is to analyze why kidnapping rates have been so high in Colombia. A brief history of kidnapping shows that it has two different roots. It was practiced in rural areas by some late “bandoleros” of the political violence period in the 1950s. On the other hand, urban kidnapping of foreigners—diplomats and CEOs—was imported from groups such as Tupamaros and Montoneros. The relationship between drug activities and kidnapping has been quite complex. First, drugs facilitated the replacement of a few foreigners paying huge ransoms—the typical set-up during the 1970s—with a higher number of local victims paying less per incident. Drug lords buying haciendas had a side effect of pushing up rural property prices. This speculative trend displaced poor peasants and attracted urban middle classes to the countryside. The weekend house owner became the typical victim during the eighties, when kidnapping rates first increased significantly. Rural guerrilla groups were able to get kidnap resources with a negligible effect on agricultural production and without deteriorating relationships with peasants. The usual arrangement with rich farmers was extortion. Second, drug dealers gave a definitive stimulus to paramilitary groups as a private protection scheme against kidnapping. Third, some notorious drug lords began their criminal careers as kidnappers. Forth, drug traffickers have used kidnapping for purely political reasons and currently use it for collecting debts. Fifth, guerrilla groups easily shift between kidnapping/extortion and drugs to finance their military operations. Indiscriminate kidnapping appeared when the middle class group of urban victims was besieged within the urban areas, by the mid ’90s. Kidnapping has been mostly linked to politically motivated groups. Colombian evidence does not corroborate the claim that kidnapping is just another business. One key issue for kidnappers is how to deal with agency problems. Several testimonies show that guerrilla leaders have been conscious of the need to indoctrinate their troops and to adopt highly centralized decision processes. Indoctrination diffuses personal responsibility and reduces the individual tendency to appropriate big cash ransoms. This may help explain why nonpolitical groups have not been able to kidnap in such a systematic manner as guerrilla groups. Several testimonies show that guerrilla leaders have been conscious of the need to indoctrinate their troops and to adopt highly centralized decision processes. Indoctrination diffuses personal responsibility and reduces the individual tendency to appropriate big cash ransoms. Upward turning points in the trend of aggregate statistical data—a first rise in the early ’80s and a soaring rate by the mid ’90s—are consistent with this brief history. However, two significant drops in the aggregate rate—from 1992 to 1995 and from 2001 to date—are not easily explained. A quite common hypothesis—that the first drop was due to an antikidnapping law—was not corroborated with time series procedures. Cross-section data shows a pattern of high initial concentration and a later spreading of rates. Statistical models show that the capacity of local factors to explain regional differences of kidnapping rates is not only small but has been decreasing. Also, that the regional patterns of kidnapping are mainly explained by the geographical expansion of armed groups. Micro-level data is scarce and the quality is dubious. Reaching former victims for interview or to answer a questionnaire has been an extremely difficult task. Interviews with negotiators show that preventive efforts have concentrated on trying to reduce the risk of being kidnapped, but no significant progress has been made on how to deal with the situation when it happens. No explicit evidence has been found about changes in the know-how of perpetrators besides the one associated with increased threat reputation and the bureaucratic buildup of rules and procedures.
Intrahousehold Income Inequality and Conflict: Testing an Economic Model of Domestic Violence in Kerala, IndiaKaivan Munshi, Economics, Brown UniversityResearch Grant, 2002, 2003 Domestic violence in developing countries has been an area of growing concern among researchers and activists in the women’s health and rights movements. An entrenched patriarchal system and a scarcity of labor market opportunities for women are seen to leave women at the mercy of their husbands. We would expect this situation to change over time with increased female participation in the labor market, but in fact the opposite pattern has been observed. Domestic violence and intrahousehold conflict have been observed to actually increase after the introduction of income-generation programs that are focused on women, for example, among Grameen Bank participants in Bangladesh. Our objective in this research project is to study the economic determinants of marital violence in South India and to make sense of the puzzling increase in intrahousehold conflict that accompanies a relative increase in female incomes. We use an interdisciplinary approach that combines the theory and methods of economics and sociology. A major aim of our research is to estimate the causal effect of increases in female income on marital violence. To test for a causal relationship, researchers would ideally allow the male-female income differential to vary randomly across a group of households that are otherwise alike in every respect. Our study site consists of 23 estates of a tea plantation in Kerala, South India, and serves as an ideal setting for such a “natural experiment.” The 23 estates have enormous variation in rainfall and elevation, which in turn generates large differences in tea yields across the estates. Men and women are occupied in different tasks on the tea estate, so their earnings respond differently to the variation in tea yields. Exogenous climatic variation thus generates random variation in intrahousehold inequality across households. At the same time, one company owns all the estates. Structural similarities across estates, including identical access to health, education, and child care services, ensures a controlled environment. Using climatic conditions as a statistical instrument for male-female income differentials, we will be able to estimate the causal relationship between these differentials and marital violence. Our research improves on an enormous literature that has used variation in female-male income differentials, female education, and direct measures of women’s status without statistical instruments, to study the effect of female empowerment on household outcomes. Using climatic conditions as a statistical instrument for male-female income differentials, we will be able to estimate the causal relationship between these differentials and marital violence. This setting also affords us the opportunity to understand the process through which decision-making within the household changes as female incomes rise and the various forms that conflict may take. An additional component of our project includes an in-depth investigation of this process of social change using qualitative methodologies. The subject of this research is extremely relevant at a time when income generation and empowerment efforts focused on women are being put into place throughout the developing world. We have spent many months in the field collecting a range of high-quality data sources, including tea company records and a survey of four thousand female workers between January and March 2003, which was funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Preliminary results show that approximately 48 percent of female workers have ever been beaten by their husbands. Data entry of the survey will be completed in summer 2003, and data analysis is set to begin in fall 2003. The qualitative component of the project is scheduled for summer 2004. BibliographyCollins, Randall, Janet Saltzman Chafetz, Rae Lesser Blumberg, Scott Coltrane, and Jonathan H. Turner. 1993. Toward an integrated theory of gender stratification. Sociological perspectives 36(3):185-216. Cooper, Russell and Andrew John. 1988. Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 103(3): 441-463.Ellsberg, Mary, Lori Heise, Rodolfo Pena, Sonia Agurto, and Anna Winkvist. 2001. Researching domestic violence against women: Methodological and ethnical considerations. Studies in family planning 32(1):1-16. Heise, Lori, Alanagh Raikes, Charlotte H. Watts, and Anthony B. Zwi. 1994. Violence against women: A neglected public health issue in less developed countries. Social science and medicine 39(9):1165-1179.Jejeebhoy, Shireen J. 1998. Associations between wife-beating and fetal and infant death: Impressions from a survey in rural India. Studies in family planning 29(3):300-308. Kabeer, Naila. 1997. Women, wages and intra-household power relations in urban Bangladesh. Development and change 28:261-302. Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A. Pollak. 1994. Noncooperative Bargaining Models of Marriage. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 84(2):132-136. Mason 1997. Mason, Karen O. 1997. Gender and demographic change. In Jones, G. et al., eds. The continuing demographic transition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McCloskey, Laura. 1996. Socioeconomic and coercive power within the family. Gender & society 10(4):449-463.Rao, Vijayendra. 1997. Wife-beating in rural South India: A qualitative and econometric analysis. Social science and medicine 44(8):1169-1180. Samarasinghe, Vidyamali. 1993. Puppets on a string: Women's wage work and empowerment among female tea plantation workers of Sri Lanka. The journal of developing areas 27:329-340. Schuler, Sidney Ruth, Syed M. Hashemi, Ann P. Riley, and Shireen Akhter. 1996. Credit programs, patriarchy and men's violence against women in rural Bangladesh. Social science and medicine 43(12):1729-1742.Whaley, Rachel Bridges. 2001. The paradoxical relationship between gender inequality and rape: Toward a refined theory. Gender & society 15(4):531-555.
Nationalism and Violence in Two Post-Soviet Republics: Azerbaijan and MoldovaDavid D. Laitin, Political Science, University of ChicagoResearch Grant, 1997, 1998 The goal of my HFG grant was to account for variation in the degree of violence in the critical moment of state breakdown in the former Soviet Union. At this moment, as in the case of many imperial breakdowns, the level of ethnic violence increased markedly compared to the era of Soviet hegemony. My previous research examining ethnic identification in four republics (Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) was inadequate to account for variations in violence, since all of them were peaceful. The HFG grant allowed me to replicate the research techniques used in my earlier studies to include two cases where there was significant secessionist violence in the new republics (Moldova and Azerbaijan). Two theories were tested to account for the variation in cases. The oft-cited theory of Donald Horowitz emphasizes psychological mechanisms affecting self-esteem; the greater the challenge to ethnic self-esteem, the more likely the violence. An alternative theory by James Fearon and Pieter van Houten, based on Rogers Brubaker’s “triadic configuration,” is also tested. This theory relies on a commitment logic, and hypothesizes secessionist violence where minority groups get clear signals of support, should they try to secede, from a national homeland. These findings are important because they tell us that the quality of ethnic relations is less important than previously thought in accounting for violence; and that interventions by neighboring states (or rump groups within them) are often the culprits for civil war violence. The newly collected data did not support the predictions that would follow from Horowitz’s theory. Ethnic relations in Moldova and Azerbaijan were no more challenging to self-esteem than in the peaceful republics. The commitment theory, however, was consistent with the data and the historical record. In Moldova a rump-Soviet army unit and in Azerbaijan a strong militia from Armenia gave unqualified support to secessionists, thereby emboldening them. Meanwhile, Russia gave only mixed signals to the Russian minorities in the four peaceful republics. These findings are important because they tell us that the quality of ethnic relations is less important than previously thought in accounting for violence; and that interventions by neighboring states (or rump groups within them) are often the culprits for civil war violence. The research findings were published in Comparative Political Studies (Laitin 2001) as “Secessionist Rebellion in the Former Soviet Union.” The research materials were also the basis for a doctoral dissertation by Alena Guboglo at Moscow State University.
Characteristics and Determinants of Global Homicide Crime Waves, 1946 to 1998Gary LaFree, Sociology, University of New MexicoResearch Grant, 1999 Difficulties in comparing political and legal systems have long hampered our efforts to estimate cross-national violent crime rates. Adding the requirement that such studies examine trends over time makes the task even more complex. In this research project, we used World Health Organization records to collect the most comprehensive set of annual homicide victimization data that has ever been assembled. In the main part of our analysis, it was possible to examine annual data for some forty nations for a fifty-year time period. This unique data base has provided answers to a variety of questions about trends in homicide across nations. First, we were able to use these data to determine how common violent crime “booms” and “busts” have been since World War II. We defined crime booms as crime rates that increase rapidly and exhibit a positive sustained change in direction. Based on our definition, we found that twelve of the nations in our sample of thirty-four nations (or 35.5 percent) had experienced crime booms since World War II. These findings contradict both those who argue that booms in violent crime have been rare or nonexistent in the postwar period and also those that argue that violent crime booms have been nearly universal. In support of modernization perspectives, we also found that 70 percent of the industrializing nations in our sample qualified as having crime booms, but less than 21 percent of industrialized nations did. Our results provide little support for the argument that there has been a growing rift in homicide rates between industrializing and highly industrialized nations. However, we also find that convergence in national homicide rates is far from universal. Second, we were also able to use the data to examine whether violent crime rates for the nations of the world are getting more similar or less similar over time. Some researchers have argued that crime rates for all nations of the world will gradually converge as individual nations go through similar globalization processes while others contend that instead there will be growing divergence between crime rates in industrializing nations and the industrial elite but convergence in crime rates within both groups. We use econometric methods to test for convergence and divergence in homicide victimization rates for thirty-five nations from 1956 to 1998. Our results provide little support for the argument that there has been a growing rift in homicide rates between industrializing and highly industrialized nations. However, we also find that convergence in national homicide rates is far from universal. In fact, nearly all of the cases of homicide convergence we could identify took place among nations of the European Union. Thus, it appears that modern examples of crime convergence are limited mostly to nations that are geographically and culturally proximate. A paper reporting these results is currently under review. And finally, we are in the process of using the global homicide database to examine a series of related questions: Is there evidence that male and female rates of homicide victimization are getting more similar over time? How has the global transition to democracy affected homicide victimization rates? And do nations with higher levels of social capital experience lower rates of homicide victimization? Bibliography2002. Declining Violent Crime Rates in the 1990s: Predicting Crime Booms and Busts. Criminology 25:145-168.
