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H2020Individual fellowship2022–2024

MICROPOLPAX · Micro-level Politics of Peace

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2022-09-01 → 2024-08-31
EU contribution
€214,159
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Micro-level Politics of Peace

Establishing sustainable peace that has the support of the population is a key aim of peace settlements. The costs of failure include increased deaths and internally displaced persons, as well as social and economic costs. Ultimately, the problem is a conflict trap, whereby conflict makes the conditions that lead to war even worse, thereby increasing the chances of war recurrence. Attention is thus turning to how to embed peace and ensure that peace endures. To date, much of the focus in peace building has been on peace agreements. However, peace agreements are elite pacts. We know little about how the people who are directly affected think about peace. In an innovative research agenda, the project “Micro-level Politics of Peace” (MICROPOLPAX) puts citizens at the centre of the research. The study asks what peace means to individuals; when do they reject or support international norms such as respect for minorities, and justice; and what are the effects of these preferences. These questions are examined using survey data since advances in technology now allows for access to information through the privacy of internet surveys, along with advances in survey techniques that can reveal hidden opinions.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Peace settlements are elite pacts that ignore the views of the population, those most affected by the conflict, which leads to a lack of buy-in for sustainable peace. The project “Micro-level Politics of Peace” (MICROPOLPAX) puts individuals at the centre of the focus and asks what peace means to individuals. The framework has universal relevance but will be tested in the timely case of Ukraine, a country currently undergoing conflict in the European Union’s near abroad and of geopolitical significance to the EU. The project is interdisciplinary and methodologically plural, using mixed methods of qualitative interviews and the rigorous methods of survey experiments. The action allows for the two-way transfer of knowledge, combining the experienced researcher’s learning on norm diffusion and political psychology with the supervisor’s expertise on micro-level dynamics of conflict. The training-through-research gained will enable the applicant to open up this new research area and become an independent and skilled researcher.The action will generate academic dissemination through conferences, articles, open-access data and a specialist seminar. The action will also provide policy exploitation for the EU, peace negotiators and for democracy activists in Ukraine. Throughout the action, the project will take advantage of many types of public engagement, such as blogs, web-based games, World Peace day and International Women’s Day.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • UNIVERSITETET I OSLO · OsloCoordinatorNorway

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union