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Advised by Dr. Kathleen M. Carley |
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"Developing a Relational Theory of Intra-State Conflict Dynamics: How Coalitions are Formed and Utilized" My thesis develops theory about coalition formation among organized, non-state groups in intra-state conflicts. Much of the extant literature in international relations focuses on alliance formation among nation-states. However, analysis in international relations has been dominated by static types of analyses, in which conditions for alliance formation are posited and then usually supported with a number of case studies. This type of theory is not amenable to asking questions about the consequences of an alliance formation, which can be non-trivial in intra-state conflicts. In an intra-state conflict, alliances can shift numerous times, each affecting the conflict. I use a dynamic-network multi-agent model called the Regional Threat Evaluator, a model I have helped develop. I utilize the model to theoretically explore the effects of different alliance logics of intra-state conflict. Synthetic data is used to control for and test conditions thought to affect alliance dynamics. Real-world data is used to ground the model's parameters in the real-world and to compare model results to what is known from historical cases and the literature. The primary contribution of this thesis is a framework for developing a dynamic theory of coalition formation. Secondary contributions include 1) an improved understanding of how alliance networks affect intra-state conflicts and 2) the simulation model itself which can be used to explore the causes and conditions that favor alliance formation among sub-national groups and its effects on state stability. Careful attention also paid to how simulation can be used to study a social system despite the practical constraints on validation using traditional methods is also
This work has been supported in part by the AFOSR under a MURI with GMU (600322) on adversarial modeling, the National Science Foundation (NSF DMS-0437239 ), the Office of Naval Research (ONR N00014-06-1-0104 ), and the National Science Foundation IGERT in Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (NSF DGE-9972762). At the conceptual level, RTE is based, on an earlier model called Acumen, developed under DARPA (FA8650-05-C-7222). Additional support was provided by CASOS – the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Air Force Office of Sponsored Research, the National Science Foundation, DARPA, the Office of Naval Research, or the U.S. government. Thesis Committee:
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