Clarence Moore, Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, received a TAARII US Research Fellowship for 2015 for his project Tribal Alliance Behavior in Iraq.

Clarence Moore’s dissertation asks: under what conditions does violence against civilians reduce popular support for violent actors and their causes? In addition to asking how violence influences support for outcomes such as religious government and democracy, Moore ties political orientations to tribal alliance behavior in Iraq. He proposes that because tribal leaders resist control by outsiders and draw their authority from popular support, tribal alliance behavior is a process based on sectarian geography, coercive violence by insurgents, and civilians’ and tribal leaders’ reactions to that violence. Though academics and policy analysts agree that many Sunni Iraqi tribes had turned against militants by 2007, there is currently no explanation of why some tribes switched sides and others did not. To answer this question, Moore will complete fieldwork in Amman, Jordan. He will use semi-structured interviews and surveys conducted with Iraqi refugees to develop a typology of violence and sort regions of Iraq according to the type and scale of violence they experienced. This information will allow him to assess the relationship between location, violence, and alliance behavior.