Understanding the Relationship between Violence and Preferences for Peace

• In Event: Poster Session: Dynamics of International Conflict and Competition

Abstract

Do people prefer peace over justice in the aftermath of war? While existing research argues that violence increases prosocial and cooperative behavior, trust, and leadership roles, it also acknowledges that violence makes victims less interested in forgiving and reconciliation and more supportive of justice-seeking, blaming, and retribution. Shifting the research focus from individual exposure to violence to wartime cleavages, I argue that the uneven distribution of violence and territorial control across the conflict space affects public opinion towards peace. Specifically, civilians in contested territories experience violence from both sides of the conflict and tend to engage in community-building and cohesion to protect themselves. Yet, because self-protection is not a long-term solution, they want peace more than those exposed to violence under government or rebel territorial control. I combine data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project survey on individual opinions towards conflict, reconciliation, and peace in Colombia with novel micro-level territorial control data for the government and rebel groups. By employing mediation analysis, I find that exposure to specific actors under distinct territorial control and governance conditions during conflict significantly influences individuals’ political preferences concerning peace.

Author

• Merve Keskin, University of Pittsburgh