Experiencing peace after a decade: Christian Gläßel and co-authors explore perceptions in post-conflict Sri Lanka

In the article “Divergent Perceptions of Peace in Post-Conflict Societies: Insights from Sri Lanka”, published last week in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Gläßel and his co-authors compare peace perceptions between the winning majority and the losing minority and find striking results.

Ten years after a conflict has been decisively won by the ethnic majority, how does each side experience the different dimensions of peace and how do they feel about the future prospects for peace and stability in their country? Together with Sabine C. Carey and Belén González, Hertie School postdoctoral researcher Christian Gläßel set out to explore this question in the case of Sri Lanka, whose brutal 26-year civil war ended with a resounding government victory in 2009.  

Based on a 2018 representative survey of 2000 Sri Lankans, the researchers have found that the winning majority (in this case, the Sinhalese) are consistently more likely to report improvements in peace than the losing minority. While the minority (in this case, the Tamils) report great improvements in their physical security since the conflict, they are considerably less satisfied with the progress on other aspects of peace. This is a crucial finding because, as the researchers note, “if certain groups feel like they have been left behind, polarization cannot be overcome, and peace will remain little more than the absence of war.”

The study investigated four different dimensions of peace (the relationship between warring parties, personal security, freedom of speech, and fair political treatment) alongside citizen reflections on the future of peace and stability in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, despite a decisive and lasting victory, the Sinhalese majority were by and large not any more optimistic about the future and were also not in favour of imposing repressive policies on the minority. Regardless of what the objective progress on peace and equality in Sri Lanka may be, these findings offer critical insight into citizens’ perceptions, which in turn shape their policy preferences and behaviour. This micro-level, bottom-up research shows the lasting legacy of armed conflict on a personal, individual level and provides an important contribution to building a more nuanced understanding of peace.

Read the full article here.

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