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SPRP Project to Focus on Dynamics of Cooperation in Civil War

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Elizabeth Menninga, assistant professor in the UI Department of Political Science, received Summer Policy Research Program (SPRP) funds to hire undergraduate students for help with her project, "Tainting the Well or Priming the Pump? The Dynamics of Cooperation in Civil War."

The project will examine the questions: How do disputants in civil wars learn from attempts at cooperative interactions duringconflict? When do these interactions taint the well, making future negotiations difficult and prospects for long-term resolution slim? When do they prime the pump, preparing the disputants to engage in future negotiations and encouraging sustainable conflict resolution?

The students, Matthew Galles, Abbey Jordahl, Mary Kelly, Kyle Galvin, and Anna Haider, will assess potential conflicts to determine if they meet the criteria for inclusion in the project, code characteristics of the cooperation within the conflicts, and provide input on developing protocols for the next phase of coding. To read a complete description of Menninga's project, click here.

The SPRP is meant to encourage more undergraduate student participation in faculty research by providing funding to researchers for hiring students to work on their projects.