Who’s to Blame? Post-conflict Violence, Political Messaging, and Attitudes Towards Peace Agreements

Frank Wyer

British Journal of Political Science, 2025, vol. 55, -

Abstract: How do episodes of post-conflict violence affect public support for peace? I argue that political messaging about who or what is to blame can influence how violence affects attitudes towards peace agreements. I test this argument in Colombia, a country which has experienced violence after a 2016 peace agreement, and where rival political camps debate whether government failures or noncompliance by rebels is to blame. In an experiment with 1466 respondents in conflict and non-conflict zones, I paired news about post-conflict violence with information supporting these competing messages. I find that emphasizing rebel culpability reduced support for peace agreements, but emphasizing poor government implementation did not have a strong countervailing effect. A probe of the mechanisms suggests that while emphasizing rebel culpability increased perceptions that rebels alone were to blame, emphasizing government implementation failures led respondents to conclude that both parties were to blame, limiting the effectiveness of this message.

Date: 2025
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