Dr. Michael Rubin Flom is an assistant research professor at UConn, holding a joint position
between the Human Rights Institute and the Schools of Engineering and Business. He earned a Ph.D from the University
of Columbia. His work has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International
Studies Review, and other outlets .

Streamed at https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/meet/mas07010

Free and Open to the Public

Presented by: Prof. Anna Pechenkina (Utah State University)

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://uconn-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqdemvpzojHdxN2tuiMrNiN79pYAoxaOJS

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.



What shapes people’s attitudes in violent conflict, and what makes them support peace? In this paper, we develop a new theory of civilian attitudes in war that integrates two major forces shaping people’s wartime thinking to explain when they support the compromises and concessions required for peace. Notably, we argue that survival and injustice are two crucial and often competing `modes of thinking' that shape how civilians understand and navigate violent conflicts. Civilians engaging in injustice-based thinking focus more on the social and political objectives of their collective identity groups in armed conflict, forming wartime attitudes out of concern for those groups and their goals. In contrast, civilians engaging in survival-based thinking focus more on the practical and concrete danger that war poses to themselves and their loved ones, developing attitudes more out of concern for individualized self-protection. We fielded a pre-registered survey experiment in wartime Ukraine in the summer of 2022 to explore these ideas. We find that manipulating these modes of thinking through a short message in a survey experiment is difficult, but observational differences across individuals on this dimension strongly shape preferences for peace. [co-authors: Austin J. Knuppe, Daniel M. Silverman]



For more information contact Jeremy Pressman.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science and HRI’s Human Rights Research and Data Hub

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://uconn-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0tf-irqDgiGNJXCJQu51tK5oafTjRmBtAD

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

How and why do international aid actors connect with local actors during crises, and with what consequences? I theorize that international aid actors forge social, behavioral, and material relations with local actors to achieve their objectives in crisis response. In so doing, they generate change in nonviolent activism, constituting activists as “capable” and organized crisis responders. This means, concurrently, that international aid actors enable wartime activism to persist even in the depths of violence. I process trace to build this theory in the Syrian war. Evidence of its observable implications comes from immersion and interviews with Syrians and international actors in neighboring countries, and an original dataset of Facebook pages representing activist organizations. Findings related to post-protest and non-rebel-facing action, and the constitutive power of humanitarian actors, contribute to understandings of wartime agency and the international dimensions of internal conflicts.

POLS Internship Open House

Looking for an internship? This event provides you with an opportunity to meet and connect with representatives from several internship sites. This is not a recruiting event, but rather an opportunity to receive information and ask questions on popular internships related to the fields of law, politics, crime and justice, and public policy.

Tentative list includes: The CT Legislative Internship Program, the CT Judicial Branch Experiential Learning Program, Perception Programs, Inc., the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), the Office of Senator Chris Murphy, the Office of Representative Joseph Courtney, the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, and the London Program through Experiential Global Learning

Representatives from the Center for Career Development will also provide information on resources they offer for landing that perfect internship.

You are invited to the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (HBL 4-209) on March 30, at 12:30PM to attend a talk by Carl Wennerlind, Professor of History at Barnard, on his new book on the history of capitalism: Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis (Harvard UP, 2023).