Feb 2013 – Feb 2018
This project will examine conflict in terms of incompatibilities between actors, where the specific structure of the incompatibilities and the strategies and interactions determine whether we see escalation to violence as well as alternative outcomes such as accommodation or regime change. It will extend my prior research on civil war and focus more clearly on actor motivations, alternative outcomes to conventional civil war, and take seriously non-violent strategies in conflict and protest. Whereas previous research has tended to study violent and non-violent conflict as separate phenomena, this project will focus on violent and non-violent actions as possible substitutes and compliment and explain variation across a range of alternative outcomes, as illustrated in the so-called Arab spring, where we see both non-violent protest and violent insurgencies, as well as state responses ranging from violent repression to accommodation. The project will also consider how transnational factors can influence the choice of strategies that actors make in conflicts.
The work will be organized around 6 work packages:
In addition to publications in international peer-reviewed outlets, the project will involve training of post-doctoral research fellows and will foster international collaboration between the University of Essex and the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
The Department of Government at the University of Essex invites applications for a three-year, full-time research position as a PhD fellow.
This PhD fellowship is financed as part of a Grant from the European Research Council for a project on “Conflict, Strategies, and Violence: An Actor-based Approach to Violent and Non-Violent Interactions” led by Professor Kristian Skrede Gleditsch.
Deadline: 1 June 2013
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch of the University of Essex and PRIO has been awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council for the project ‘Conflict, Strategies, and Violence: An Actor-based Approach to Violent and Non-Violent Interactions’.
While existing research tends to equate conflict with violence, this project examines conflict in terms of incompatibilities between actors, where the structure of the incompatibilities and the actors’ strategies and interactions determine whether we see escalation to violence or alternative outcomes, such as accommodation or regime change. The project will be hosted by the Department of Government at the University of Essex, but a significant component of the work will be conducted at PRIO, where Håvard Strand will play an important role in the project. The new project will also draw on the PRIO project on Effective Non-Violence? Resistance Strategies and Political Outcomes, funded by the Research Council of Norway for the period 2012–15.
The ERC project started on 1 February and will run for five years. The proposal summary follows below: