Matthew Nanes

Sectarian Conflict, Political Institutions, Policing, Ethnicity and Religion, Domestic Security, Terrorism

Dissertation Title: From the Bottom-Up: Sectarian Conflict and Integration of the Bureaucracy in Divided Societies

Description: My research deals with the effects of political institutions on violent conflict in societies with deep-seated ethnic and religious divisions. I focus primarily on the politics of the Middle East, and field work has taken me to Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Oman, and the UAE. My dissertation asks how the demographic makeup of policy-implementing bureaucratic , and especially the police, affects the likelihood of violent conflict in divided societies. Drawing on original survey, experimental, and observational data collected in Iraq and Israel, I show that citizens from minority groups who are exposed to integrated policing are less likely to support the use of anti-government violence. I subsequently test three specific mechanisms linking police integration with individual-level incentives to foment conflict. Additional research with several coauthors explores the effects of police integration in the Philippines and the United States.

Committee: Karen Ferree (chair), Claire Adida, Eli Berman, David Lake, Philip Roeder