RAPID: Citizen Perspectives on Peace, Security and Human Rights in a Post-Conflict Environment

NSF AWARD ABSTRACT: RAPID: Citizen Perspectives on Peace, Security, and Human Rights in a Post-Conflict Environment

The international community often struggles with the dilemma of how to manage relations with new regimes that come to power by force. On the one hand, policies that sanction and isolate these new regimes can lead to deprivation for civilians. On the other hand, the provision of economic and humanitarian aid to vulnerable civilians can stabilize such regimes.

This project will gather and analyze new survey data on public opinion regarding these dilemmas of peace, security, and human rights in a post-conflict environment. The project will examine potential differences in public attitudes on peacebuilding and human rights by gender and ethnicity. The findings of this project will be of practical use to US national security policymakers in guiding a strategic approach to relations with new regimes in post-conflict countries.

Additionally, the new surveys will help fill a data vacuum on the preferences of conflict-affected civilians, especially women, regarding international support and how to best address dilemmas of stabilization and peacebuilding in conflict-affected countries.

The project will field three public opinion surveys in a post-conflict country, using novel random domain intercept technology to collect random, secure, anonymous samples of public opinion of internet users. The multi-wave surveys will enable the testing of hypotheses in real-time on a) whether public views on human rights and peace and security differ between men and women and across different ethnic groups and geographical regions, and b) how attitudes shift as the domestic and international security situation evolves.

The findings of this research will contribute to the scientific literatures on gender and security, public opinion on national security in developing countries, and domestic sources of support for human rights (including women’s rights) and peacebuilding in post-conflict countries.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.