石油是否导致族群战争?——过程追踪法与定量研究法的比较

Does Oil Cause Ethnic War? Comparing Evidence from Process-tracing with Quantitative Results

本文在实证研究和方法论上都作出了一定贡献。在实证研究上,本文试图解决一个重要问题:石油是否导致了族群战争?在方法论上,本文试图比较两种方法在同一个实证研究中的结果,从而更准确地理解定量研究法和使用过程追踪的案例研究方法各自的缺陷与优势。因此,本文采用过程追踪法对石油的族群地理分布与族群冲突在统计上的相关关系进行检验。通过案例研究,本文发现石油很少是引起族群冲突的深层次原因。相反,石油的族群地理分布要么将重新点燃根植于族群仇恨的冲突,要么会加剧正在进行的族群冲突,特别是通过促进两组相互关联的机制来发挥作用。本文回应了这样一种观点,即定量研究本身并不能确立特定的因果机制,也无法解释事件中的情境因素如何影响这些因果机制,也正是因为这两点,我们认识到定性研究具有非常关键的优势。因此,定量研究和定性研究是相互补充而非相互竞争的。本文还为那些拥有丰富矿产资源的国家提出了预防和管理族群冲突的重要政策建议。

This article contributes both empirically and methodologically.Empirically,we seek to advance our understanding of an important puzzle:does oil cause ethnic war?Methodologically,we seek to identify more precisely the different weaknesses and strengths of the quantitative approach and case studies with process-tracing by explicitly comparing results from these two approaches on the same empirical question.We thus subject the statistical association between the ethnogeographical location of oil and the onset of ethnic war to test with process-tracing.Examining several pathway cases,we find that oil has rarely been a deep cause of ethnic war.Instead,the ethnogeographical location of oil either reignites dormant conflict that has deeper roots in ethnic resentment and hatred or intensifies ongoing conflict,mostly by facilitating the operation of two interconnected mechanisms.Our study echoes the notion that quantitative exercises alone often cannot establish specific causal mechanisms or how contextual factors impact the operation of these mechanisms,and it is precisely on these two key fronts that qualitative exercises possess critical advantages.Hence,quantitative methods and qualitative methods are complementary rather than competitive.Our study also yields important policy implications for preventing and managing ethnic conflicts in countries with rich mineral resources.