What do people think about the institutions adopted to build peace after civil war? The short answer is simply: we do not know.
The ‘Attitudes for peace’ research project addresses this shortcoming by conducting public opinion surveys in three postconflict countries (Guatemala, Nepal and Northern Ireland), asking about ordinary citizens’ thoughts and feelings about different peacebuilding strategies.
This project is hosted at NTNU, and a partnership between NTNU, SINTEF and PRIO, and is led by Karin Dyrstad at NTNU.
This project aims to investigate two key relationships:
- How do different peacebuilding strategies influence institutional trust in postwar societies?
- What is the relation between support for postwar institutions and peace?
Central to both questions is the dynamics between the institutions engineered to build peace – the peacebuilding strategies – and citizens' support for these. We argue that variations in peacebuilding strategies affect how people perceive these institutions, and that these perceptions, in turn, are closely related to whether people will support or participate in violent opposition against the government in the future.
Please see the project page at SINTEF for more elaborate information.
