Peace from the Bottom-Up? The Role of Citizens in Peace Processes

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Research on peace processes, agreement design and negotiation dynamics during and after intra-state wars is often based on preferences of entrenched elite actors. Yet we know very little about how citizen preferences shape a peace process and peace agreement design. We also only have a limited understanding of how agreements shape citizens’ short- and long-term preferences towards other groups and post-conflict institutions. For example, under which conditions do citizens support trade-offs in peace agreements? Do peace agreements change the way how citizens from opposing ethnic groups perceive the other group? How do peace agreements shape citizens’ willingness to provide public goods to the other group? And can peace operations influence citizens’ attitudes towards post-conflict political institutions?

Answering these questions is important to gain a theoretically comprehensive understanding of the bottom-up causes of peace. The contributors to this panel seek to address this gap. The papers approach questions on citizen preferences, peace processes, and agreement design from a variety of different theoretical and empirical perspectives, based on rigorous research and novel data. This diverse approach allows us to identify common themes of citizen preferences in peace processes and agreement design across space and time.

The panel’s first paper by Loizides et al. leverages a conjoint experiment from new surveys in Northern Ireland and Cyprus, to investigate how citizens perceive trade-offs in power-sharing agreements. The second paper by Nanes analyzes how minority participation in security institutions influences the majority group’s willingness to make concessions in peace talks, using the empirical example of Israel/Palestine. The third paper by Whitt examines public goods provision to co-ethnics in ethnically divided societies, based on experimental results from post-war Kosovo. Finally, turning to the role of international actors in peace processes, Karim and Mailhot rely on survey experiments conducted in Haiti and Liberia to analyze how foreign endorsement of and assistance in rebuilding post-conflict institutions increases citizens’ trust in these institutions.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 21: Conflict Processes

Chair

• Caroline A. Hartzell Gettysburg College

Discussants

• Kristin Marie Bakke University College London

• Gabriella Lloyd University of Maryland, College Park

Individual Presentations

• Can Power-Sharing Settlements Secure Citizen Support in Post-Conflict States - Neophytos Loizides; Edward Morgan-Jones, University of Kent; Laura Sudulich, University of Kent; Feargal Cochrane, University of Lancaster

• Majority Responses to Minority Participation in State Security Institutions - Matthew Nanes, Saint Louis University

• Public Goods in Ethnically Divided Societies - Sam Whitt, High Point University

• International Support for and Trust in Domestic Institutions - Sabrina Karim, Cornell University; Cameron Mailhot