When the Guns Grow Loud: Support for Democracy in States with Conflict Violence

• In Event: Elites under Fire: Assassinations, Mutiny and Leadership Change

Abstract

How does the experience of war violence shape the popular perceptions of and support for democracy? How does the attribution of accountability for the results of the war prime individual political values and preferences? Finally, what role does information--specifically, revelations about misconduct in the military and the political arena--play in one's governance preferences? Does an increased sense of insecurity make one more likely to support authoritarianism and how do these political preferences vary geographically and demographically?

To answer this question, my theory draws on the literatures and methodologies from political science, sociology, and anthropology to design an original survey experiment and deep ethnography in the borderlands of Armenia. Armenia has experienced over 30 years of militarized conflict violence with neighboring Azerbaijan. I leveraged the geographic feature of Armenia's select administrative units, which are adjacent to each other, yet, vary in their exposure to conflict. The survey collects unique data on various dimensions of individual interactions with violence and one's views on different elements of democratic governance. During the experimental component of the survey, respondents are provided with a stimulus that tests whether and what type of unsavory revelatory information about the conflict incident changes individual support for democracy. Demographic information collected during the survey allows me to assess whether variables such as gender, age, generation cohort, proximity to violence, and likelihood of handouts from the state informs these views and the likelihood of changing one's opinion.

The findings on whether residents of these villages view and support democracy differently, depending on their exposure to violence, are coupled with months of ethnographic fieldwork. Collecting the anthology of these voices on the ground puts into context my respondents' interactions with conflict violence, as well as how these experiences inform one's perception of democracy. This combination of data collection on the grassroots level, as well as a large-N quantitative work allows us to obtain a new perspective on support for democracy in territories affected by conflict.

Author

• Evgenia Jane Kitaevich, University of Michigan