Why Public Attitudes are important but neglected in Post-conflict Peacebuilding

Introduction

When designing peacebuilding programs, insufficient attention has hitherto been paid to the relevance of public attitudes in the analysis of post-conflict societies. Although recent theses of peacebuilding require focusing on local contexts, extant empirical findings and policies are not bridged sufficiently in terms of the needs, values, and norms of local populations. Armed conflicts are characterized by the involvement and victimization of ordinary civilians. Additionally, violent incidents are concentrated in specific conflict-prone locations, often geographically peripheral areas In this context, urban bias must be addressed when evaluating the causes and processes of conflict. While this nature of conflict encourages us to take advantage of the virtues of public-attitude studies, their practical use is hindered by data collection issues, such as survey timing, case selection, and external validity. By providing a careful consideration of methodological issues, academic and policy communities should support timely fieldwork implementation to investigate local situations in conflicts of concern. A meta-analysis of public attitudes may also help us better design peacebuilding programs that acknowledge the relevance of locals’ experiences and their views on post-conflict reconstruction and development. Still, deliberation is needed on how to use one-size-fits-all evidence whose lessons are expected to be applicable to any conflict cases.

Locally turned peacebuilding

In their implementation, contemporary peacebuilding programs place great emphasis on the liberal ideas of democracy, the free market, human rights, and the rule of law (i.e. liberal peacebuilding). This type of peacebuilding prevails in the foreign policies of great powers and international organizations toward conflict-prone countries. By overseeing the implementation of political affairs, the United States pursued these ideas to establish stability in post-9/11 Afghanistan and Iraq. The United Nations (UN) also has a long tradition of liberal peacebuilding, as it initiated numerous peace operations that aimed to establish liberal institutions in conflict-affected countries in the aftermath of the Cold War. These efforts took the relevant approach as the dominant practice of conflict resolution in recognition of the fact that post-conflict countries should and could (re)develop social, economic, and political institutions in a relatively short time so that liberal norms would be ensured.

However, liberal peacebuilding, specifically regarding post-conflict peacebuilding efforts/practices, have been criticized. Some researchers are skeptical of institutionalist approaches with standardized instruments to manage conflicts that focus on elections or broader democracy-assistance activities. At the same time, others question the application of liberalist policies for political and economic reconstruction. Problematizing its ideological background and coercive approach, post-modernist theses often take “illiberal” interventions by international actors against conflict-affected states as a variation of orientalism, imperialism, or colonialism.

These criticisms primarily center on the failure of liberal peacebuilding in assessing and understanding conflict drivers in a locality. While liberal-peacebuilding programs do not exclude subnational actors, such as civic groups, non-governmental organizations, and the business sector, they often prioritize national-level institutional development and elite-level negotiations and pay less attention to agendas that are relevant to local people’s needs. Consequently, they miss local nuances and develop flawed mitigation strategies. For instance, the early-1990s peace operations in Somalia overlooked clan politics and failed to address key confrontations between them. The neglect of local circumstances is problematic because the absence of a grassroots consensus will lead to peacebuilding projects lacking local legitimacy. Moreover, it undervalues day-to-day activities and customs that can prevent the occurrence of local violence and address nationwide tensions. However, the locals often have informal networks and a set of formulated measures for conflict with neighbors and business partners.

With the emergence of arguments that emphasize the importance of local actors, recent theses have begun to acknowledge and advocate the role of civil society in post-conflict peacebuilding processes. This “locally-turned” approach sheds light on civic life, such as family welfare and community well-being. It is expected that local stakeholders will actively design and implement “open-ended” or “goal-free” peacebuilding by themselves rather than merely take part in one-size-fits-all programs whose goals and measures are predetermined.

Why do public attitudes matter?

Recent peacebuilding theses emphasize the importance of identifying and understanding the historical context and drivers of conflict from the perspective of international actors, the host government, and local populations. Similar approaches could also be applied to post-conflict reconstruction strategies and their implementation. For sustaining peace, it is crucial to understand the needs and demands of locals as the most relevant agents, as well as how they affect peacebuilding outcomes.

The characteristics of armed conflicts can provide answers to the question why public attitudes are important. First, local civilians are often involved and victimized in armed conflicts. In most cases, they are fence sitters not committed to either camp of belligerents. Civilians may be threatened to support either side or both under imbalanced power relations with armed actors. Although such civil–military relations are commonly observed across conflicts, personal interviews from my fieldwork in Cambodia reveled that, in the conflict between 1970 and 1975, Khmer Rouge cadres and government soldiers coerced civilians to provide not only material goods such as food and cloths but also information about the opponent. The refusal of such requests was highly likely to cause the punishment of uncooperative persons by each side of the belligerents. The wartime experiences of collaboration with armed actors would have a great impact on civilians’ sociopolitical life in the aftermath of the conflict, particularly when post-conflict politics hinges on pre-conflict and wartime divisions. In fact, after gaining power, from 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians based on their wartime backgrounds and behavior.

In addition, as the distinction between military battles, organized crime, and civilian abuse has become increasingly blurred in current armed conflicts, civilians have begun to be subjected to mobilization by the armed forces. Being a combatant has an enormous influence on one’s livelihood. Military service is highly risky because soldiers are often physically injured and mentally impaired even if they are not killed in the conflict. Moreover, their close family members and other relatives may be victimized by wartime violence. The loss of these individuals inevitably reshapes social relationships. In the Peruvian civil war (1980–2000), indigenous women of the Andes highlands came to play the role of negotiators with state authorities in search of their detained or disappeared menfolk, despite their lack of Spanish language-proficiency and prior contact with the authorities. This process encouraged some of them to found or join human rights groups.

Second, ordinary civilians matter in peacebuilding processes because violent incidents often occur in specific conflict-prone locations, being often peripheral areas that are occupied by non-elite and non-fighting populations. Although transportation allows the government and security forces to exercise their authority over those politically marginalized areas, the physical distance between capital cities and conflict sites commonly weakens such capacity, regardless whether logistics are well developed or not. In addition, rough terrain decreases clout by keeping clear of the central authority for its accessibility barriers. In the view of political elites in urban cities, such conflicts tend to be caused by the fixed motivations of insurgents. While in a conflict over political regime, rank-and-file individuals are assumed to be mobilized for their ideological commitment, they are supposed to enlist in co-ethnic forces in an ethnic conflict. However, grassroots interactions are often based on more fluid and opportunistic relationships between community and external actors. Urban information and assumptions obscure the importance of local circumstances and result in an a-contextual interpretation of the causes and processes of conflict.

Requirements for the successful assessment of conflict and design of peacebuilding

The inaccessibility and invisibility of civilians in conflict areas need to be addressed in the evaluation of conflicts, and more rigorous and comprehensive efforts must be taken to obtain data from those most directly affected by conflict. To fully and accurately ascertain the drivers of conflict and better facilitate the conditions for lasting peace, it is crucial to gather information on cases of greatest concern at an appropriate timing in a direct way.

Among the various sources available, one of the most powerful measures to obtaining a sense of the civic problems is the implementation of a survey that allows one to capture the public attitudes toward various issues. The determination of public attitudes relies on the answers and reactions of many respondents, who are often ordinary people selected to be surveyed based on certain rules (e.g., random, systematic, stratified, and cluster sampling), to particular questions and experimental interventions. They are advantageous in that public opinion does not limit the focus to specific groups of people but represents the attitudes of a wider population. While former leaders and combatants of the armed forces are direct stakeholders in peacebuilding, ordinary civilians are not negligible either in the development of an environment of sustainable peace.

Survey timing, case selection, and external validity

Despite the importance of integrating local populations into the peacebuilding process, public knowledge and input have not been effectively made use of for the analysis of post-conflict societies. This is ironic in that, although recent theses of peacebuilding require us to focus on local contexts, the empirical findings and policies are not bridged sufficiently. This inevitably generates a gap between local structures such as needs, demands, and peacebuilding interventions. The lack of a link between empirical survey-based findings and policymaking is caused by data collection issues such as survey timing, case selection, and external validity.

First, surveys are not carried out in a timely manner, as the immediate aftermath of armed conflict is the best time for investigators to capture the attitudes of members of the public who have been affected by the conflict. The administration of surveys usually requires considerable manpower; for instance, enumerators need labor to conduct fieldwork in different locations. An unstable environment does not ensure the safety of those enumerators who are tasked with executing surveys in conflict-affected communities. This would also cause a security problem for respondents, since participating in such surveys might put them at risk against any actors who profit from concealing wartime incidents. Therefore, investigators face a dilemma between survey timing and management-related issues. As safety is paramount for all persons involved, the implementation of the survey is often deferred and only becomes possible long after the conflict has been settled.

Online surveys may partially address this problem but access to registered respondents in relevant areas whom investigators want to engage with may not always be possible. These surveys often target opt‐in internet-access panels, that is, groups of respondents who have expressed a willingness to take part in questionnaires on online survey platforms; for instance, market researchers could investigate those registrants to obtain information as to how specific commercial goods are perceived by consumers. However, at this point, we do not have similar pre-registered samples of individuals who experienced civil conflicts. Even if it exists, a relevant platform may not guarantee that the registrants represent the population in question because registration is primarily voluntary. For peacebuilding programs to be effectively designed, investigators need not have an extensive view of the country but instead focus on most conflict-affected areas. Similarly, the sample does not have to be nationally representative but should be so for the areas under study.

The over- and under-representation of specific groups of civilians is another issue in the post-conflict context. In a male-dominated society, for instance, investigators cannot readily access women who suffered greatly as a result of wartime destruction although they are expected to play a major social role after the conflict. Northwestern Pakistan is seriously affected by conflict; namely, Taliban rebels murdered tribal leaders to expand their influence and massive displacement of civilians reshaped socioeconomic relations and structure in the locality. Although women could take on a greater role after male population was victimized by the conflict, patriarchal norms hinder women’s social advancement and keep them underrepresented in the public sphere. Even when socio-political groups or unions are visible and accessible to outsiders, it is still important to recognize the degree to which they are inclusive or exclusive in the entire society.

Moreover, even if a survey can be carried out in a timely manner, the immediate aftermath of the conflict may be characterized by the locals being more focused on short-term humanitarian needs (e.g., emergency health care, food, water, and shelter) than those for enduring peace that require long-term investment of funds and human capital. In many cases this focus reflects the devastation caused by wartime violence and destruction. At the same time, given that conflict-affected local communities are in competition with each other for the acquisition of limited sources of humanitarian aid, those communities would have an incentive to focus on emergency and immediate needs. In this situation, a concurrent, two-tiered approach for the assessment and provision of emergency assistance, as well as long-term issue identification and mitigation, would be an effective measure for conditioning enduring peace. However, this situation makes it difficult for them to consider time-consuming processes of peacebuilding, while the fulfilment of such short-term needs is closely related to communal stability.

Second, related to the above-mentioned point, conflicts of current concern are likely to be investigated not through surveys but through the non-survey assessment of interviews with high-ranking officials and stakeholders and/or secondary sources such as newspapers, briefing reports, and statistical materials. As a result, while public attitudes can be revealed in societies where violence has ceased long ago, analyses of the situation in ongoing and recently ended conflicts tend to lack empirical evidence of wide and well-prepared surveys. Unfortunately, this causes survey research to fail in meeting the expectations of stakeholders and policy interests. Based on expert knowledge and experience, non-survey analyses of conflict-affected societies often provide valuable insights that put together scattered information to draw the implications contributable to policy development. However, armed conflicts influence civilians in various ways throughout their duration. It is impossible to ascertain the needs of these individuals without direct contact because post-conflict public attitudes may reflect those of the pre-conflict period or may have changed due to wartime and/or post-conflict incidents (Figure 1). In this sense, assumptions without appropriate grassroots evidence could mislead one in understanding public demands that should be incorporated into peacebuilding policies because conflict dynamics and peacebuilding outcomes often differ at the national and local levels. In South Sudan, for instance, macro-level institutional settlements after the civil war (1983–2005) did not sufficiently address micro-level disputes among local population such as landownership and property rights, which had a risk of causing another conflict; rather, the legalization of communal customary rights to land addressed these problems. Therefore, an analysis based solely on national-level interactions would fail to capture locals’ daily needs and requirements, as attention to local dynamics is needed for that purpose.

Figure 1. Conflict process and post-conflict public attitudes

Third, survey findings cannot be immediately applied or extrapolated from one case to another. Given the reasons discussed above, opinion polls are unlikely to be implemented at the best time and location. Conversely, valuable implications are often offered by investigations for conflicts that terminated long ago. These findings have merit for their rich scholarly knowledge but not always respect policy interests because they do not directly touch upon conflicts of current concern, which have unique sociopolitical drivers. However, they could still be viewed as a broad initial guide and used to draw information and make inferences applicable to the analysis of current conflicts of interest. One problem is that public attitudes and even the conflict–attitude link of a specific case do not have a high level of applicability to other cases (i.e., external validity). This is primarily because the structures of conflict differ significantly between cases. In addition to the diverse historical backgrounds, confrontations may occur along social divisions, and such divisions may become blurred as a conflict progresses. Moreover, wartime and post-conflict political processes may also vary across different cases. Some conflicts are settled through negotiations, while others terminate because of military victory and defeat.

For these reasons, a survey in one location contains a limited number of variables that can be referred to for the analysis of another conflict, while questions or interventions relevant to a specific conflict may not be applicable at all to another case. Unlike cross-national surveys, those conducted in conflict-affected societies are case-specific, so that investigators can capture local situations in a specific context. For instance, the timeframe of conflict dynamics is an important information to be recorded because it can contextualize respondents’ answers in major events and changes in the relevant periods. The timeframe varies between conflict cases; while ceasefire agreements separate the periods of conflicts such as in Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Palestine, other cases of conflict are not always interrupted by ceasefires but last to the end, whether they terminate with negotiation or military victory. Even in the latter case, the stages of conflict move forward according to military situations (e.g., seizure of territorial control and victory/defeat in major battles). As the shift of these stages largely depends on the structure and dynamics of each conflict, common triggers are not readily observable. For these reasons, the limited external validity of survey-based findings would cause peacebuilders to refrain from referring to those obtained in cases outside their policy interests.

One-size-fits-all findings?

The practical use of survey results in the development of peacebuilding policies is hindered by challenges in data (collection) such as survey timing, case selection, and external validity. Given these obstacles, at least three measures could be worth consideration to facilitate more favorable peacebuilding outcomes:

• support for timely implementation of surveys;
• use of meta-analysis results; and
• development of a peacebuilding community receptive to scientific findings.

First, the simplest solution would be to conduct a survey to investigate civilians’ needs and demands and to better understand conflicts in terms of policy priorities. Despite the unfavorable environment, the timely administration of such a survey would be of inestimable value. Designing a survey to reveal the causal effects of conflict-related incidents on civic life requires considerable time and effort. However, to obtain the information needed to develop appropriate peacebuilding measures, the timely implementation of surveys should be supported and funded by academic and policy communities. As a representative peacebuilding actor, for instance, UN peace operations could be structured by shifting their organizational orientation from the emphasis on liberal institutional building to the respect for primary information obtained from civilian populations through opinion polls.

Hastily implementing surveys may seriously distort respondents’ reactions, possibly leading to skewed or inaccurate results. Moreover, the difference in nuances between languages may cause disagreement about or ambiguity in the wording of translated questionnaires; peace(building) itself would have different meanings across communities and contexts, ranging from ceasefire to structural and lasting measures to address social contradictions. The recent literature on survey research revealed that response distortion is caused in some environments (e.g., social desirability and sensitive questions) and explored how these problems can be addressed. For these methodological concerns, a division of labor would be expected for data collection between peacebuilders in the academic and policy fields. Surveys can be designed under consultation with experts on the relevant method and implemented and evaluated in collaboration by peacebuilders in both areas.

Second, external validity poses fundamental questions regarding the generalizability of survey findings: how useful is their generalization and how far should it be pursued? Although findings from a single or few cases of conflict are not readily transferable to another, an exhaustive data collection across cases may contribute to revealing the general mechanisms at play regarding armed conflicts and public attitudes. Therefore, meta-analyses are worth considering. This approach has been increasingly producing significant knowledge in the social sciences and humanities. The literature on public attitudes toward conflict has provided scant empirical evidence to turn to a relevant meta-analysis, but it remains on the future agenda. For instance, it could contribute to the debate on the impact of wartime violence on civilians’ sociality and cohesion regarding whether they obtain prosocial attitudes and behave cooperatively with community members in response to the experience of violence. Because communal collectivity is required for long-term development and peacebuilding, relevant findings suggest that people not only need support but can also be key facilitators in post-conflict reconstruction. Additionally, developmental aid interventions may facilitate communal stability by enhancing supportive attitudes among civilians toward service providers. Any related findings are important because a consensus has not been reached as to whether aid and service provision reduce the recurrence of violence or lead to a deterioration of security.

Third, an issue that is not limited to meta-analyses is whether peacebuilders will be receptive to findings that oppose their views, priorities, and policy orientations. How much of a given public attitude toward political stability should be respected by those who (are expected to) take it for granted? Although the recent developments of peacebuilding theses and theories tend to reject the blind reliance on formalized state-building, they also problematize programs preserving social relations that have caused and may cause conflicts in the future.

Finally, we would face déjà vu on the issue of generality versus particularity in peacebuilding, as in the debate on liberal and locally turned arguments. While many scholars and practitioners have criticized the shortcomings of the one-size-fits-all peacebuilding programs, this research team did not focus on discussing the relevance of one-size-fits-all evidence in the development of peacebuilding policies. Therefore, for evidence-based peacebuilding policies, further deliberation is required regarding how surveys should be implemented and how their data should be used.

Conclusions

Despite the reliance of major powers and international organizations on liberal peacebuilding, its unfavorable outcomes prompted rethinking a way to maintain sustaining stability in post-conflict societies. By criticizing the standardized ideas of liberal peacebuilding, locally turned theses shed light on the relevance of local context to the assessment of armed conflict. Among others, surveys are promising tools for understanding local demands and needs. The importance of surveys cannot be emphasized too much for understanding conflicts characterized by civilians’ victimization, fluid cleavage, and motivation for fighting. However, the practical use of survey findings has been hitherto limited by data collection issues. The timely implementation of surveys is key for successful peacebuilding in the aftermath of conflict. Alternative measures, including meta-analyses, would also help in identifying mitigation strategies for post-conflict problems. However, for all these measures to work, the peacebuilding community needs to be literate and receptive to scientific evidence.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Tsunetaka Tsuchiya for his helpful comments. The financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, KAKENHI, grant number 22K01381) is also gratefully acknowledged.

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