Strategies of Shaping Peoples and States

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Political scientists have identified a variety of strategies that state and non-state actors use to shape populations and territories. State policy options range from violent exclusion to non-violent assimilation and accommodation. Similarly, non-state actors have a relatively discrete repertoire of strategies they can use to shape their desired outcomes. This panel seeks to answer why state and nonstate actors deploy particular strategies to achieve their aims, and with what effects. We consider in tandem the efforts of states to engineer their territories and peoples and the efforts of non-state groups to resist and shape their own futures.

The panel highlights methodological pluralism in the study of conflict: it brings together qualitative and quantitative cross-national studies, a regional survey, and a deep single-case study that share a related set of substantive concerns. Each of the participants brings different historical and regional comparisons to help identify common strategies and their outcomes. This panel is designed to facilitate conversation between scholars working on discrete moments or mechanisms of conflict processes with others studying the longer-term evolution of conflicts and their aftermath. We are trying to also understand how two novel cross-national datasets, a regional survey and a single deep case study can shed light on similar issues from different methodological perspectives. By examining the various strategies employed to shape peoples and states this panel seeks to further our collective understanding of the relationships between intentionality and outcomes.

Among the key issues this panel addresses are: How do separatists strategically employ referenda? Why do governments expel unwanted populations? How do the strategies states use to manage separatist populations and territories under their control change over time? And how do present beliefs shape peoples’ perceptions of historical victimization and resistance?

Cunningham et al. argues that separatists strategically employ referendums in different ways to achieve a diverse set of policy goals and presents a cross-national dataset on self-rule referenda in order to determine under what conditions referenda are more likely. Bakke et al. use a regional survey in the Former Soviet Union (Russia’s “near abroad”) to address questions about the sources and effects of perceptions of historical victimisation, resistance, and oppression. Garrity seeks to understand the motivation of expelling governments by presenting an original database of mass expulsion incidents from 1912-2012. Shils examines the evolution of Israeli strategies for ruling over the territories and populations of West Bank and Gaza.

Sub Unit

• Division 21: Conflict Processes

Individual Presentations

• The Strategic Use of Self-Rule Referenda - Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, University of Maryland, College Park; Laia Balcells, Georgetown University; Morgan L. Kaplan, Harvard Kennedy School

• Geopolitics and Perceptions of Historical Victimisation and Resistance - Kristin Marie Bakke, University College London; Christopher Rickard, Mr; John V. O'Loughlin, University of Colorado; Gerard Toal, Virginia Tech

• Toward an Empirical Theory of Mass Expulsion: Identifying and Measuring Cases - Meghan Garrity, University of Pennsylvania

• The Politics of State Prevention and Creeping Annexation - Nathaniel Shils, University of Pennsylvania

Chair

• Harris Mylonas George Washington University

Discussant

• Ahsan Ishaq Butt