Running Candidates after Using Violence? Evidence on a Possible Path to Peace from a Survey Experiment in Colombia

Abstract

Designing peace agreements that can be signed and sustained can be difficult in civil conflict. Many recent cases of successful settlements include electoral provisions, often for the rebel group to participate as a political party. Engaging the electoral process, however, can also open the peace process to the population at large, potentially derailing the deal or aspects of it. In this paper, we examine popular support for the transformation from bullets to ballots, testing whether average citizens object to providing former rebels with these protections, legitimacy, and power. Using a survey experiment in the context of Colombia’s current peace process between the Government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), we find that the peace process as a whole is more popular than its electoral provisions, and we find that endorsement of the provisions by the FARC further diminishes support. These findings are important to understanding how to design settlements, providing policy implications for the peace process in Colombia, but also for other peace agreements designed around electoral provisions.