Constantin Ruhes Forschungsschwerpunkte umfassen die Themengebiete empirische Friedens- und Konfliktforschung sowie angewandte quantitative Forschungsmethoden. Im Bereich Friedens- und Konfliktforschung liegen die Arbeitsschwerpunkte in zwei Bereichen: den Determinanten und Auswirkungen internationaler Konfliktmanagementversuche in bewaffneten Konflikten sowie den Auswirkungen von Gewalterfahrungen auf individuelle Einstellungen, Gruppendynamiken und Flucht- bzw. Migrationsprozesse.
(Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 2021-2024; Project Team: Sigrid Roßteutscher (Goethe University Frankfurt), Constantin Ruhe (Goethe University Frankfurt), Richard Traunmüller (University of Mannheim))
The religiosity and religious identity of Western European Muslims has received increasing attention in academic research and public discourse. Yet, despite extensive research over the past decade, Muslims' strong preservation of religious traditions remains an unsolved pattern in Western European immigration societies. A dominant explanation of religious identity is the discrimination or exclusion of Muslim immigrants by the majority population. However, beyond the often individually experienced discrimination in everyday situations, Muslim individuals are subject to a more severe and increasingly visible form of xenophobia: violence and acts of terror, which explicitly target Muslims indiscriminately. Moreover, radical Islamic terror organizations try to fuel this vicious cycle. Caught between a faction of radicalized Muslims as well as hostile, islamophobic elements of the majority population, secular segments of the Muslim population are in an awkward position, where they feel resentment and pressure from different sides.Surprisingly, however, we have very little empirical research on how this two-pronged threat of violence affects Muslims in Germany. The proposed research project addresses core questions within this research gap: How does religiously motivated violence alter religious identity? How does identity, discrimination and violence affect civic or political behavior? And how do these reactions vary with the social position which individuals occupy? After all, social mobility has fundamentally altered and diversified German society, including the largest Muslim-origin immigrant group, the Turkish guestworker communities. Today, many Muslim-origin immigrants of all generations hold a wide range of positions in politics, economy and society, with the result that religion cross-cuts many other dimensions which are potentially relevant to individuals' social identity.We build on the theoretical framework of the overarching RISS research and expand it by illuminating how exogenous events, such as Islamist and anti-Muslim violence, perturb the association between social structure, identity and behavior. The proposed project examines these questions using an original survey of German Muslims, which we will collect as part of the RISS Internalization Survey. We rely on innovative measurement strategy using a conjoint experiment to estimate the importance of religion within individuals' multidimensional social identity. Furthermore, our proposed empirical analysis uses an experimental design to evaluate how social identity as well as political preferences and behavior are linked to perceptions of violence and discrimination. (Project Page)
(Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), 2021-2023; Project Team: Constantin Ruhe (Principal Investigator), Meri Dankenbring (Project Researchers), Iris Volg (Project Researcher))
Recent research argues that peace agreements in armed intrastate conflicts are more stable and prolong peace if they contain specific provisions, such as powersharing, justice measures or information-sharing mechanisms. Surprisingly, however, very little research analyzes when and why we see specific peace agreement content in the first place. This research project addresses these gaps and develops a comprehensive theoretical framework of peace negotiations, agreement content and their joint effect on conflict behavior in armed intrastate conflicts. To this end, it connects and expands research on mediation, peace agreements and disaggregated conflict dynamics. The framework generalizes insights from mediation research and argues that conflict parties' ability to reach a compromise is a central, but thus far unobserved variable, which determines both the content and the impact of peace agreements. The project will break new ground by developing a measurement model from the theoretical framework, which will enable us to quantify compromise ability in civil conflicts worldwide. Based on this new data, the project explains and models specific agreement content and its effects.
(Funding: Swedish Research Council; Project Team: Sabine Otto (Uppsala University, Project Leader), Constantin Ruhe (Goethe University Frankfurt), Hannah Smidt (University of Zurich), Lisa Hultman (Uppsala University), Jair van der Lijn (SIPRI))
United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations have become one of the most prominent responses to civil wars around the world. The role of civilian personnel and their activities have proliferated during the last two decades and become increasingly central, whereby the promotion of human rights is one of the core function of UN peacekeeping operations. Our knowledge, however, about the impact of civilian staff and activities on protecting human rights standards is inconclusive and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We explore whether and how the civilian components of UN peacekeeping operations improve human rights standards. To achieve this goal, we disaggregate the civilian dimension of peacekeeping operations into civilian personnel and their activities. Empirically, we collect and analyze novel data that disaggregates peacekeeping operations along these key dimensions. By using statistical methods that exploit between- and within- country variation, we examine whether and how the different civilian components affect peacekeeping operations' ability to improve human rights practices. The results from the project will generate valuable insights into how to design more effective peacekeeping operations. (Project Page)
(Associated researcher at the German Development Institute)
This project addresses the multidimensional (multivariate) causes and explanatory factors of forced migration, and investigates the sustainability of different strategies for managing forced migration and flight. It also uses examples of two African sub-regions (East Africa, West Africa) to examine the potential for regional, national and sub-national policies to support a development-oriented approach to managing regular migration.
Project papers
(joined work with Sebastian Schutte and Andrew Linke)
The project aims at measuring and monitoring inter-group hostilities in ongoing civil conflicts to investigate how individual attitudes towards out-groups covary with experienced violence. The research is based on a social-psychological framework and the recent turn in the civil conflict literature toward grievance-based explanations for mobilization. To test observable implications of the theory, we employ a new computer system for conducting reimbursed electronic surveys in low-intensity conflicts in both Kenya and India.
Project papers
The most commonly used duration models assume that covariate effects remain constant over time. This assumption is often violated in political science analyses with long observation times. While modeling such time-varying effects is easy to implement, the interpretation is not intuitive and prone to severe inferential errors. I study the merits and limitation of existing interpretation and visualization techniques and develop methods and software tools that help applied researchers to interpret estimation results correctly.
Project papers:
Conflict management attempts tend to be initiated when conflicts escalate. The project looks into this endogenous process of violence and conflict management and analyzes the relationship between the short-term dynamics of intrastate conflicts and third party mediation attempts. It ties together the literature on conflict management and disaggregated conflict research. On a larger scale, the project tests the central role of information asymmetries postulated by the bargaining theory of war. Using a combination of empirical work and computational modelling I am able to show that, first, short-term conflict events strongly predict the decisions to initiate and accept mediation onset. Second, these association undermine our ability to estimate mediation effects in existing country-year or conflict-level data. Third, once mediation is initiated and addresses the main conflict incompatibility, mediation is associated with a strong reduction in conflict intensity. Overall, the empirically observed pattern of conflict reduction is substantively similar to the theoretical prediction of the computational model.
Project papers:
During my BA and MA studies, I worked as a research assistant with the Konstanz One-Sided Violence Event Data (KOSVED) Project and assisted with coding and data management. The project motivated both my bachelor's and master's thesis. The BA thesis examined the effect of various external interventions on the level of violence against civilians using an interrupted time series design. A related paper was eventually published (joint work with Gerald Schneider and Margit Bussmann). My master's thesis examined our ability to predict one-sided violence. The resulting paper demonstrates that both the number of acts and the intensity correlate with other conflict events and enable fairly accurate predictions.
Project papers:
(*denotes co-authored papers presented by co-author)
2022 |
Forecasting peace agreement content: How conflict events predict the substance of peace settlements, Symposium "Thinking ahead: avenues and challenges in crisis forecasting" des Kompetenzzentrum Krisenfrüherkennung, November 7 – 8. Political institutions along SSPs and SDP, Joint Workshop of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the V-Dem Institute and Stockholm Environment Institute on “State of the science of 'political futures' -- Exploring how to improve the representation and usability of socio-political factors in the SSPs", October 24 – 25. *Negotiating complex issues with little fervour? Why peace processes in territorial conflicts tend to produce incomplete outcomes EPSA 2022 12th Annual Conference, June 23 - 25. *How mediators shape the content of peace agreements: A theoretical framework of negotiations over issues 21st Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference, June 20 - 22. Negotiating complex issues with little fervour? Why peace processes in territorial conflicts tend to produce incomplete outcomes Jahrestagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK), March 17-19. |
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2021 |
Who intends to leave? Global survey evidence how individual migration intentions differ between conflict-affected and peaceful contexts German Development Economics Conference 2021, June 17-18. Facilitating negotiations on complex, controversial and salient topics: How mediators shape the content of peace agreements European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual Conference, June 24-25. Many hurdles to take: Explaining peacekeepers' ability to implement human rights activities on the ground International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference April 6 - 9. Facilitating negotiations on complex, controversial and salient topics: How mediators shape the content of peace agreements International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference April 6 - 9. Many hurdles to take: Explaining peacekeepers' ability to implement human rights activities on the ground Jahrestagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK), March 17-19. |
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2020 |
Determinants of human rights activities in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Sektionstagung Internationale Beziehungen, Universität Freiburg October 7 – 9, Freiburg. - planned presentations, all conferences cancelled due to Corona virus pandemic - Who chooses to leave? Heterogeneous migration decisions in conflict and non-conflict settings. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 25 – 28, Honolulu. Roundtable: The Future of Forced Displacement: Getting from empirics to policy outcomes. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 25 – 28, Honolulu. Who is willing to fight? Panel survey evidence of ethnic mobilization and individual inclinations to violence during political conflict. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 25 – 28, Honolulu. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK) Kolloquium, March 12 – 14, Schwerte. |
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2019 |
Who is willing to fight? Panel survey evidence of ethnic mobilization and individual inclinations to violence during political conflict. Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, Institute of Social Studies, June 24 – 26, the Hague. Should Mediators Shy Away From Employing Carrots and Sticks? Comparing the Relative Effectiveness of Mediator Strategies. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 27 – 30, Toronto. How Do Migration Intentions Change During Periods of Political Instability and Violence: Panel Survey Evidence From Urban Kenya. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 27 – 30, Toronto. |
(*denotes co-authored papers presented by co-author)
2018 |
*American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference August 30 – September 2, Boston, MA. Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, Universität Verona, June 18 – 20, Verona. |
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2017 |
European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual Conference June 22 – 24, Milano. *Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, University of Antwerp, June 26 – 28, Antwerp. Sektionstagung Internationale Beziehungen, Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW) October 4 – 6, Bremen. |
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2016 |
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (AFK) Kolloquium March 3 – 5, Bonn. European Network of Conflict Research (ENCoRe) Conference January 21 – 22, Geneva. |
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2015 |
European Political Science Association (EPSA) Annual Conference June 25 – 27, Vienna. European Network of Conflict Research (ENCoRe) Conference October 1 -2, Barcelona. Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) Annual Conference April 16 – 19, Chicago, IL. |
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2014 |
Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) Summer Institute, Duke University, June 16 - July 11, Durham, NC. European Network of Conflict Research (ENCoRe) Conference October 16 – 18, Koc University, Istanbul. International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference March 26 – 29, Toronto. |
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2013 |
Conflict Research Society (CRS) Annual Conference September 16 – 20, University of Essex, Colchester. |
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2012 |
Network of European Peace Scientists (NEPS) Annual Jan Tinbergen Conference, Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW) Berlin, June 25 – 27, Berlin. |
scurve_tvc a Stata command to calculate survival functions from Cox models with time-varying coefficients published in the Stata Journal 16(4), 867-879. To install the package, type „search scurve_tvc“ in Stata and click on the search result to install the package. You may also type „net install st0458“ and it will install the package automatically.
bsurvci a Stata command to calculate bootstrap pointwise confidence intervals for survival functions from Cox models. published in the Stata Journal 19(1), 185–199. To install the package, type „search bsurvci“ in Stata and click on the search result to install the package. You may also type „net install st0553“ and it will install the package automatically.
Please cite user-written software when you use it in published research. Thank you!
Prof. Dr. Constantin Ruhe
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.
Fachbereich 03 Gesellschaftswissenschaften
Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Campus Westend, PEG-Gebäude
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6
Raum 3.G 113 (3. Stock)
60323 Frankfurt
Tel: +49 (0)69 798-36580
ruhe@soz.uni-frankfurt.de
Sekretariat
Agnes Jäger (ab 1. März)
Raum:
Tel.: +49 69 798-