The Organization that Does(n t) Bark: Organizations and the Decision for Political Violence
Abstract
This project develops and tests the implications of an innovative theory of how and why some non-state social movement organizations (SMOs) pursue violent strategies to achieve change, while others do not. It also examines the conditions under which a shift in strategies from violence to non-violence occur. This latter strategic shift has never been systematically studied, although empirical cases are documented. The theory focuses on physical, environmental, social, and psychological factors that affect propensities toward violence, even when the initial movement philosophy docs not advocate violence, as well as shifts away from violence when the initial stance of the movement involved violent methods. In addition, the project is unique in developing new automated coding methods to detect these transitions toward and away from violence. This project will develop a unique database integrating public records from the Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior database, BBC Monitoring documents, and Lexis-Nexis data. The theory and methodological innovations that are being developed through this project have the potential to change the way social movement strategies are conceptualized by framing them as dynamic processes that are conditioned by the physical, environmental, and social environments that affect psychological dispositions and propensities. Additionally, the analytical strategy, which will combine hierarchical linear modeling with survival analyses to detect the decay of strategies over time is highly unique and has the potential to break new ground in how social processes change over time. The Pl will develop new methods to automate the coding of qualitative sources (i.e., text archives) to facilitate computational analyses of descriptions of social movement strategies, focusing on the use of violent tacticts vs. peaceful protest methods. The PI s approach will also use epidemiological methods that are more commonly applied to the assessment of mortality/morbidity of diseases to the evolution of violent vs. peaceful social movement strategies. That is, the PI will use survival analyses to model the persistence and emergence of violent methods among non-state social movement organizations. This method has never been used to assess how violent methods emerge, grow, and decline. The methodological strategy will incorporate parametric and semi-parametric survival models that will be applied to the coded data from multiple sources (enabling validation of the measures). The PI will then use parameters from the survival analyses to develop hierarchical linear models that enable detection of causal relationships among environmental, physical, social, and movement strategies. The project s methodological innovations have the potential to break new ground not just in the assessment of social movement strategies of violence, but also in how social dynamics in general are theorized, modeled, and tested.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1610023
Entities
People
- Victor Asal
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University at Buffalo