Who wants peace? - The role of exposure to violence in explaining public support for negotiated agreements : A quantitative analysis of the Colombian peace agreement referendum in 2016

Public support for a peace agreement is crucial in determining its success, but literature on the topic is scarce. This study adds to existing research by asking how exposure to violence influences public support for a peace agreement. It hypothesizes that people in more violence-affected areas are more supportive towards an agreement than citizens in non-violence areas. Theoretically, it builds upon the concept of posttraumatic growth (PTG), arguing that an agreement works as a psychological buffer against distress caused by exposure to violence, while PTG increases support for an agreement through more empathetic thinking. Applying municipality-level data, and performing a series of linear regressions, a large-N study of the plebiscite about the agreement between the Government and FARC in Colombia is performed. The results yield robust support for the hypothesis of more support for the agreement among violence-exposed parts of the population. More populated and urban municipalities are found to be more critical towards the agreement, while poorer municipalities voted more in favour. The strongest predictor is the 2014 presidential election, accounting for almost 45% of the variance in the plebiscite result: Municipalities that supported President Santos in 2014 were more supportive toward the agreement in 2016, whose main proponent he was