Bearing the Burden of Peace: How Ingroup Favoritism Shapes Public Support for Peace Provisions

Civilian support is key to the successful implementation of peace settlements in post-conflict countries. But what drives public support for these settlements? Drawing on peace research and political psychology, we argue that intergroup bias is a strong predictor of public opinion in post-conflict settings: The public approves peace provisions less when the ingroup bears the burden and more so when the outgroup is responsible for the costs. To test these theoretical expectations, we conducted a pre-registered and well-powered question-wording experiment with nearly 1,500 respondents in an often-overlooked but conflict-ridden country: Azerbaijan. In the aftermath of the recent and deadly resurgence of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, we primed the bearer of the costs (i.e., ingroup, outgroup, both groups, no group) for both a distributive and retributive peace provision (i.e., monetary compensations for victims and penalties for war crimes). As predicted, when the Azerbaijani state pays or stands trial, support for monetary compensations and war crime punishments substantially drops (i.e., the ingroup vs. no group contrast). However, contrary to our predictions, the Armenian prime does not significantly increase public support for either provision (i.e., the outgroup vs. no group contrast), and neither does the burden-sharing condition affect support (vs. control). Last, we find exploratory evidence that these effects are strongest for citizens adhering most strongly to the Azerbaijani state. Together, our findings indicate that ingroup favoritism, rather than outgroup hostility, determines public opinion in countries transitioning from war to peace—a conclusion holding practical implications for how political and societal elites may frame peace settlements in recent post-war settings.