Research
My research focuses on the politics of identity and group attachments in both domestic and international contexts. Below you can find information regarding my ongoing research activities.
Territorial Threats, Civil Wars, and Identity Formation.
Here we present the first cross-national, multi-level analysis of the effects of international and civil conflict on individual identity formation. Using Afrobarometer survey data from over 31,000 respondents in 16 separate sub-Saharan countries, we analyze the effects of several different types of conflict on the likelihood an individual will identify themselves as a member of an ethnic group rather than their nation. We find that international conflict exerts a strong influence on the likelihood and content of individual self-identification, but this effect varies with the type of conflict. International conflict leads individuals in targeted countries to identify themselves as citizens of their country. Individuals in countries initiating territorial disputes, however, are more likely to self-identify as members of a particular ethnic group. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that the effect of civil conflict is inconsistent across models. Indeed, civil conflict only matters for individual identity formation when international conflict is fully specified in the multi-level model. That conflict has variegated effects on identity formation suggests the relationship between international conflict and identity formation is not endogenous. Further, the temporal controls we use to test the identity models confirms that self-identification with an ethnic group follows rather than precedes conflict. We discuss the importance of our findings for the international conflict and identity literatures in some detail.
Citation: Douglas M. Gibler, Marc Hutchison and Steven Miller. 2008. Territorial Threats, Civil Wars, and Identity Formation. Working Paper. University of Alabama.