Common use of Research Design Clause in Contracts

Research Design. The research design for this dissertation was formulated following sustained inquiry into the challenges of researching the Tajik civil war. It was quickly established that a quantitative approach would not be feasible. Data on civilian casualties, always problematic in civil wars, is practically non-existent in the case of Tajikistan. Even the most utilised and authoritative conflict datasets – such as the PRIO and Uppsala datasets – contain only sparse references to the Tajik conflict. (For example, the UCDP One-Sided Violence Dataset, which reportedly includes civilian deaths by government and rebel forces in intrastate wars from 1989 to 2010, has but a single listing for Tajikistan: 34 civilians killed by government forces in 1992, a year in which it is estimated that actually tens of thousands of people were killed.37) Accumulating such data, for even a small area, is extremely difficult due to a noted reticence among Tajiks to discuss the war – a silent testimony to both the emotional trauma of the war and the need to continue living amongst its worst perpetrators.38 However, a qualitative approach faced issues of its own. As will be discussed in greater detail in the next section, there is a serious lack of secondary and scholarly literature on the Tajik civil war. The literature that does exist tends to focus on the more documented aspects of the war, namely the diplomatic efforts to end it and the complex machinations of regional states drawn into the conflict. Information on the actual military conduct of the war and the strategic behaviour of its participants is extremely thin – a few pages here, a paragraph there. Taken together, however, it formed a skeleton of the conflict’s trends and events. This was then fleshed out by a comprehensive review of contemporary media reportage of the conflict, using Tajik, Russian, European and American sources (including newspapers, wire services, news magazines, and TV and radio transcripts). Fortunately, with the Tajik war occurring at the end of the Cold War period, I was able to take advantage of the then still- copious translations of Russian and Tajik news sources into English (particularly by the BBC’s ‘Summary of World Broadcasts’ service). This constituted the bulk of the primary source research for this dissertation, as I reviewed an estimated 5,000 articles and wire reports. Because of the inherent flaws in the source material – given the difficulties of accurate reporting in the midst of a conflict, coupled with the lingering authoritarian attitudes toward the press in post-Soviet Tajikistan – all of the reportage was carefully evaluated, using a consistent ‘triangulation of data’ approach. Most often, this involved comparisons of reportage across Tajik, Russian and Western news sources, or between print and broadcast media; I also attempted to reconcile news accounts with official reports and scholarly works. Much of the reportage could not be faithfully utilised: for example, I quite often had to disregard Tajik opposition radio reports, as their accounts were not matched by any other sources. Generally, however, this process yielded a vastly improved amount of data and information on the use of violence by non-state forces during the conflict. For the first time, it became possible to trace the movements of particular actors and the impact upon civilians throughout the war. This close media analysis allowed a more granular analysis of conflict dynamics, and thus enabled more nuanced and in-depth interpretations of key events and arenas of victimisation. 37 Dataset available at: http://▇▇▇.▇▇▇.▇▇.▇▇/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_one-sided_violence_dataset/ [last accessed 2 February 2012] 38 ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2011), 2; ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2009), 91. For example, whilst virtually all secondary sources note the outbreak of armed clashes in Dushanbe during the first week of May 1992, few narrow the first occurrence to the evening of May 5, and only one notes its immediate catalysing incident. In most accounts, the first shots seem to happen rather spontaneously and perhaps inevitably – yet the media accounts reveal that a roadblock confrontation outside the capital was actually the immediate catalyst for the first armed clashes in Dushanbe, after weeks in which tens of thousands of people refrained from violence during mass demonstrations.39 As another example, this review of the media reportage reveals a far more serious crisis at the Tajik-Afghan border during the 1993-1997 phase of the war than the secondary literature usually conveys. Armed incursions by hundreds of Tajik militants, and Russian artillery and helicopter assaults on Afghan bases and towns, actually made the Tajik-Afghan border one of the more dangerous and destabilising zones in the former Soviet space (particularly after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban). Finally, the considerable human costs of continued conflict in eastern Tajikistan during this period, including hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of newly displaced people, are similarly neglected by studies that reference merely sporadic and low-grade combat in the area. Thus, the use of media resources to expand the strategic history of the civil war represents an empirical contribution to the field, in presenting and summarising the key developments and behaviour of conflict actors during this time period to a degree not typically undertaken. This dissertation also benefited from twenty-nine semi-structured interviews conducted during a research trip to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.40 Fieldwork in Tajikistan presents many challenges. As noted, the civil war is a strongly taboo subject of conversation socially, and an ethically problematic topic to ▇▇▇▇▇▇ with people given the extreme trauma that most Tajiks living in the war-affected regions experienced. The perpetrators of civilian victimisation that I focus on in this dissertation – the PFT – became the most powerful political and criminal figures in the postwar era, and I could not expect people to openly discuss their past crimes. The government still monitors the press and foreign visitors; before going to Tajikistan, I was warned by a number of people with experience working in the country to be extremely discreet in my discussions, and not to keep any incriminating notes on my person. Whilst in the end I did not suffer undue harassment (except for the occasional surprise police visit), such warnings give an indication of some of the challenges of conducting research in an authoritarian and highly criminalised state.

Research Design. The research design for this dissertation was formulated following sustained inquiry into the challenges of researching the Tajik civil war. It was quickly established that a quantitative approach would not be feasible. Data on civilian casualties, always problematic in civil wars, is practically non-existent in the case of Tajikistan. Even the most utilised and authoritative conflict datasets – such as the PRIO and Uppsala datasets – contain only sparse references to the Tajik conflict. (For example, the UCDP One-Sided Violence Dataset, which reportedly includes civilian deaths by government and rebel forces in intrastate wars from 1989 to 2010, has but a single listing for Tajikistan: 34 civilians killed by government forces in 1992, a year in which it is estimated that actually tens of thousands of people were killed.37) Accumulating such data, for even a small area, is extremely difficult due to a noted reticence among Tajiks to discuss the war – a silent testimony to both the emotional trauma of the war and the need to continue living amongst its worst perpetrators.38 However, a qualitative approach faced issues of its own. As will be discussed in greater detail in the next section, there is a serious lack of secondary and scholarly literature on the Tajik civil war. The literature that does exist tends to focus on the more documented aspects of the war, namely the diplomatic efforts to end it and the complex machinations of regional states drawn into the conflict. Information on the actual military conduct of the war and the strategic behaviour of its participants is extremely thin – a few pages here, a paragraph there. Taken together, however, it formed a skeleton of the conflict’s trends and events. This was then fleshed out by a comprehensive review of contemporary media reportage of the conflict, using Tajik, Russian, European and American sources (including newspapers, wire services, news magazines, and TV and radio transcripts). Fortunately, with the Tajik war occurring at the end of the Cold War period, I was able to take advantage of the then still- copious translations of Russian and Tajik news sources into English (particularly by the BBC’s ‘Summary of World Broadcasts’ service). This constituted the bulk of the primary source research for this dissertation, as I reviewed an estimated 5,000 articles and wire reports. Because of the inherent flaws in the source material – given the difficulties of accurate reporting in the midst of a conflict, coupled with the lingering authoritarian attitudes toward the press in post-Soviet Tajikistan – all of the reportage was carefully evaluated, using a consistent ‘triangulation of data’ approach. Most often, this involved comparisons of reportage across Tajik, Russian and Western news sources, or between print and broadcast media; I also attempted to reconcile news accounts with official reports and scholarly works. Much of the reportage could not be faithfully utilised: for example, I quite often had to disregard Tajik opposition radio reports, as their accounts were not matched by any other sources. Generally, however, this process yielded a vastly improved amount of data and information on the use of violence by non-state forces during the conflict. For the first time, it became possible to trace the movements of particular actors and the impact upon civilians throughout the war. This close media analysis allowed a more granular analysis of conflict dynamics, and thus enabled more nuanced and in-depth interpretations of key events and arenas of victimisation. 37 Dataset available at: http://▇▇▇▇://▇▇▇.▇▇▇.▇▇.▇▇/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_one-sided_violence_dataset/ [last accessed 2 February 2012] 38 ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ Heathershaw (2011), 2; ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2009), 91. For example, whilst virtually all secondary sources note the outbreak of armed clashes in Dushanbe during the first week of May 1992, few narrow the first occurrence to the evening of May 5, and only one notes its immediate catalysing incident. In most accounts, the first shots seem to happen rather spontaneously and perhaps inevitably – yet the media accounts reveal that a roadblock confrontation outside the capital was actually the immediate catalyst for the first armed clashes in Dushanbe, after weeks in which tens of thousands of people refrained from violence during mass demonstrations.39 As another example, this review of the media reportage reveals a far more serious crisis at the Tajik-Afghan border during the 1993-1997 phase of the war than the secondary literature usually conveys. Armed incursions by hundreds of Tajik militants, and Russian artillery and helicopter assaults on Afghan bases and towns, actually made the Tajik-Afghan border one of the more dangerous and destabilising zones in the former Soviet space (particularly after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban). Finally, the considerable human costs of continued conflict in eastern Tajikistan during this period, including hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of newly displaced people, are similarly neglected by studies that reference merely sporadic and low-grade combat in the area. Thus, the use of media resources to expand the strategic history of the civil war represents an empirical contribution to the field, in presenting and summarising the key developments and behaviour of conflict actors during this time period to a degree not typically undertaken. This dissertation also benefited from twenty-nine semi-structured interviews conducted during a research trip to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.40 Fieldwork in Tajikistan presents many challenges. As noted, the civil war is a strongly taboo subject of conversation socially, and an ethically problematic topic to ▇▇▇▇▇▇ with people given the extreme trauma that most Tajiks living in the war-affected regions experienced. The perpetrators of civilian victimisation that I focus on in this dissertation – the PFT – became the most powerful political and criminal figures in the postwar era, and I could not expect people to openly discuss their past crimes. The government still monitors the press and foreign visitors; before going to Tajikistan, I was warned by a number of people with experience working in the country to be extremely discreet in my discussions, and not to keep any incriminating notes on my person. Whilst in the end I did not suffer undue harassment (except for the occasional surprise police visit), such warnings give an indication of some of the challenges of conducting research in an authoritarian and highly criminalised state.