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Why do some people fight and others flee when confronting violence? “This question has been bothering me for quite some time,” says Aidan Milliff, a fifth-year doctoral student who entered political science to explore the strategic choices people make in perilous times.
“We’ve learned a great deal how economic status, identity, and pressure from community shape decisions people make while under threat,” says Milliff. Early in his studies, he took particular interest in scholarship linking economic deprivation to engagement in conflict.
“But I became frustrated by this idea, because even among the poorest of the poor, way more people sit out conflict instead of engaging,” he says. “I thought there must be something else going on to explain why people decide to take enormous risks.”