Krzysztof Krakowski has been awarded the Josip Peić Prize for his dissertation titled, Some Behavioral Legacies of Exposure to Gangs, Riots, and War.
Krakowski defended his thesis on 15 December 2018, under the supervision of Professor Diego Gambetta.
In their evaluation for the prize, the committee praised Krakowski's work, sharing how the thesis studies the impact of exposure to violence on prosociality. All three stand-alone chapters were published in excellent journals, including: APSR, JCR, JPR.
The first chapter of the thesis analyses the killing of hundreds of Uzbeks by Kyrgyz, using distance between armoured personnel carriers and damaged neighbourhoods as a clever instrumental variable. The second chapter innovates theoretically by putting forth symmetry of armed conflict as a moderator of the effects of exposure to violence on prosociality. Under higher asymmetry, so goes the argument, the stronger side uses informers to identify clandestine supporters of the weaker side, thus eroding trust. Krakowski tests this argument in the context of Columbia's civil war. The third chapter examines gang violence in the US and Columbia. Its contribution lies in reconciling contradictory findings from the literature, showing that gang violence can provoke both prosocial and antisocial reactions. In sum, throughout the thesis, Krakowski combines theoretical innovation with creativity in empirical design.
"Receiving the Josip Peić Prize brings sadness and joy," shares Krakowski upon receiving the Prize. He adds, "the passing of Josip was the saddest moment during my time at the EUI. At the same time, this traumatic event cemented a very unique friendship among PhD researchers in Josip's cohort, including myself. This friendship, in turn, was the best part of my EUI experience. Incidentally, my thesis is about that: how humans turn traumas into sources of prosocial transformations. I am thus honoured that it has been awarded this very special prize."
The EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences instituted the Prize in honour of Josip Peić, a PhD researcher of the 2015 cohort who passed away in November 2015. The prize is allocated to the best thesis in Political and Social Sciences to one of the researchers belonging to the cohort of Josip Peić.
Krzysztof Krakowski's thesis is available in Open Access in Cadmus, the EUI's research repository.