Exposure to Violence, Ethos of Conflict, and Support for Compromise

Abstract

Does ongoing exposure to political violence prompt subject groups to support or oppose compromise in situations of intractable conflict? If so, what is the mechanism underlying these processes? Political scholarship neither offers conclusive arguments nor sufficiently addresses individual-level forms of exposure to violence in the context of political conflict, particularly the factors mediating political outcomes. We address this by looking at the impact of exposure to political violence, psychological distress, perceived threat, and ethos of conflict on support for political compromise. A mediated model is hypothesized whereby exposure to political violence provokes support for the ethos of conflict and hinders support for compromise through perceived psychological distress and perceived national threat. We examined representative samples of two parties to the same conflict: Israelis ( N = 781) and Palestinians from Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank ( N = 1,196). The study’s main conclusion is that ethos of conflict serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between exposure to violence and attitudes toward peaceful settlement of the conflict.