living with conflict

184 Pages·2009·0.43 MB·English

LIVING WITH CONFLICT:
THE EFFECT OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, ECONOMIC ASSETS,
AND MASS MEDIA CONSUMPTION ON MIGRATION DURING ARMED
CONFLICT

by

Nathalie E. Williams

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Sociology)
in The University of Michigan
2009

Doctoral Committee:
Professor William G. Axinn, Chair
Professor Barbara A. Anderson
Professor Thomas E. Fricke
Professor Sandro Galea
© Nathalie E. Williams
All rights reserved
2009
DEDICATION
To all those who are living with armed conflict today. May they find peace and security.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am pleased to have the opportunity to acknowledge and express my sincere
gratitude to the many people who have supported me throughout my graduate career.
Without them, this dissertation would not have been written.
First, I wish to thank Professor William Axinn for his kind guidance, support, and
patience over the past six years. I am particularly grateful for his willingness to support
my interest in any topic of study and his encouragement in my development as an
independent scholar. I owe special gratitude to Professor Barbara Anderson who has
always provided thoughtful and careful reading of my work, advice on an astonishingly
broad variety of subjects and places, and opened up new ways to look at and analyze
social phenomena. I also wish to thank Professor Thomas Fricke and Professor Sandro
Galea for their thoughtful review of my work, enthusiasm, and guidance throughout.
Several others at the Population Studies Center have been particularly helpful.
Dr. Dirgha Ghimire has provided advice at every step of my research, shared a different
and invaluable perspective on social science, and shared his passion for understanding the
lives of Nepali people. Paul Schultz taught me much of my SAS programming skills and
Cathy Sun assisted me with programming complicated longitudinal data sets. My
colleague and dear friend Meeta Pradhan has always been generous with her time,
professional advice, friendship, support, and she reminds me of why I am doing this
work.
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The people of the Chitwan Valley deserve my sincere thanks and appreciation for
their willingness to share their lives over the past fourteen years. The staff of the Institute
for Social and Environmental Research has collected this data over the past fourteen
years, through very difficult periods of time.
My parents, Ronald and Carlien Williams, deserve a special thank you for their
endless support, encouragement, and patience throughout my educational career.
Finally, I am most grateful to my partner John Delfeld. His kindness, generosity
of spirit, and continual belief in the role of social science in contributing to the human
condition have inspired me in the best and worst of times. He has contributed long and
enthusiastic discussions of my work from which many of my ideas in this dissertation
evolved.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER 1. Introduction.................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 2. Coping With Conflict: Do Community Organizations Moderate the Effect
of Armed Conflict on Migration? ................................................................8
CHAPTER 3. The Role of Employment and Assets in the Decision to Migrate During
Armed Conflict ......................................................................................... 65
CHAPTER 4. Armed Conflict, Media, and Migration: A Micro-Level Sociological
Approach ................................................................................................. 110
CHAPTER 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................... 164
APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................. 173

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
2.1 Monthly Out-Migration Rates, Chitwan Valley, Nepal ............................................. 52
2.2 Predicted Probability of Migration After Bomb Blasts and Gun Battles ................... 53
2.3 Predicted Probability of Migration, With and Without Access to Markets ............... 54
2.4 Predicted Probability of Migration, With and Without Access to Religious Institutions
.................................................................................................................................. 55
3.1 Monthly Out-Migration Rates, Chitwan Valley, Nepal ........................................... 101
3.2. Predicted Probability of Migration Following Gun Battles, Interacted with Salaried
Job .......................................................................................................................... 102
3.3 Predicted Probability of Migration Following Bomb Blasts, Interacted with Salaried
Job .......................................................................................................................... 103
3.4 Predicted Probability of Migration Following Gun Battles, Interacted with
Ownership of Farmland ......................................................................................... 104
4.1. Monthly Out-Migration Rates, Chitwan Valley, Nepal .......................................... 155
4.2 Predicted Probability of Migration Following Violent Events and During the Conflict
Period (Results from Model 2). ............................................................................. 156
4.3 Predicted Probability of Migration Following Violent Events, for Illiterate Men. . 157
4.4 Predicted Probability of Migration Following Violent Events, for Literate Men. ... 158

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LIST OF TABLES
Table
2.1 Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................................... 48
2.2 Conflict, Violent Events and Migration ...................................................................... 49
2.3 Major Gun Battles, Community Support, and Migration ........................................... 50
2.4 Bomb Blasts, Community Support, and Migration .................................................... 51
3.1 Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................................... 97
3.2 Violent Events and Migration ..................................................................................... 98
3.3 Gun Battles, Employment and Assets, and Migration ................................................ 99
3.4 Bomb Blasts, Employment and Assets, and Migration ............................................ 100
4.1 Multi-Variate Associations with Literacy, Men Only .............................................. 148
4.2 Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................................. 149
4.3 Violent Events and Migration ................................................................................... 150
4.4 Violent Events, Media Use, and Migration for Illiterate Men .................................. 152
4.5 Bomb Blasts, Media Use, and Migration for Literate Men ...................................... 153
4.6 Gun Battles, Media Use, and Migration for Literate Men ........................................ 154

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ABSTRACT
This dissertation is an examination of migration during armed conflict and the
individual and community characteristics that shape this relationship. Although evidence
consistently shows that conflict affects migration on an aggregate level, there is little
theoretical or empirical work at the micro-level that addresses the individual- and
community-level determinants that make people willing and able to migrate during
conflict.
To address this gap, I develop multi-dimensional theoretical models that analyze
migration decisions at the individual level and the role of community organizations,
employment and economic status, and consumption of mass media in systematically
altering the way individuals react to armed conflict. Using the recent Maoist insurrection
in Nepal as a case study, I empirically test these theoretical models with prospective
survey data and detailed records of specific violent events.
I find that specific violent events have different effects on migration, with gun
battles increasing and bomb blasts decreasing the likelihood of migration. Within this
context, community organizations can provide economic and social support that mitigates
the influence of conflict on individuals’ lives. I find evidence that organizations such as
markets, employers, farmers’ cooperatives, and religious institutions dampened the effect
of violent events on migration. Economic indicators also moderated the conflict-
migration relationship. Location specific characteristics that an individual could lose
upon migration, such as employment and land ownership, decreased migration after any
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violent event. Conversely livestock, which are a more liquid asset, increased migration
after violent events. Finally, results show that use of the mass media positively affected
migration during the conflict, likely through the provision of information and influencing
exaggerated perceptions of threat.
Overall, this dissertation contributes to the academic literature through the
construction and empirical testing of theoretical models of individual migration decisions
during armed conflict. I demonstrate that individuals react to violence differently,
depending upon their individual and community circumstances which affect their
experience and perceptions of violence and the utility and ability to migrate away. I also
demonstrate that detailed measurement of the specific events that constitute armed
conflict is necessary to effectively study subsequent behaviors.

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