Hoping for Peace during Protracted Conflict: Citizens’ Hope Is Based on Inaccurate Appraisals of Their Adversary’s Hope for Peace

• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0022002719896406
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Hoping for Peace during

Protracted Conflict:

Citizens’ Hope Is Based

on Inaccurate Appraisals

of Their Adversary’s Hope

for Peace

Oded Adomi Leshem

1,2,3

, and Eran Halperin

4

Abstract

Hope is an essential component in the pursuit of political change. In order to hope,

citizens need to wish for the change and have some expectations that it could

materialize. This article explores how the two components of hope (i.e., wishes

and expectations) are constructed in the seemingly hopeless case of a protracted

and violent conflict. Utilizing a large-scale survey administered in Israel, the West

Bank, and the Gaza Strip, we show that citizens’ appraisals of their adversary’s

wishes and expectations for peace affect their own wishes and expectations,

which, in turn, influences their willingness to support peacebuilding efforts.

Regrettably, citizens’ tendency to underestimate their rival’s wish for peace lessens

their own hopes, which further abates the support for peacebuilding. The study is

the first to illustrate a mechanism by which hope for peace is constructed and the

pathways by which hope facilitates resolution. Theoretical and applied implications

are discussed.

1

Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

2

Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Reconciliation Lab, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

3

School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA

4

Department of Psychology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Oded Adomi Leshem, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington,

VA 22201, USA.

Email: oleshem@gmu.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(7-8) 1390-1417

ªThe Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002719896406

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Keywords

hope, protracted conflict, Palestine, Israel

Protracted ethnonational conflicts, like the ones between India and Pakistan, Greek

and Turkish Cypriots, and Palestinians and Jew ish Israelis, are among the most

challenging international disputes, even though, or perhaps because, they have been

lasting so long. Research on protracted conflict suggests that the longevity of the

conflict is one of the factors that further their continuation because the extreme

duration of these disputes allows for an ossification of rigid beliefs that then become

major obstacles in the way of peace (Coleman et al. 2007; Halperin and Bar-Tal

2011). One of the beliefs fueled by the protraction of the conflict is the belief that the

conflict is innately irreconcilable (Rouhana and Bar-Tal 1998). Understandably, the

continuous state of violence and hostility, coupled with numerous failures to reach

an agreement diminish citizens’ belief in the feasibility of peace. In turn, low

expectations that peace will ever materialize lead parties to divest efforts and

resources from the pursuit of resolution. There is simply no incentive to support

negotiations, compromise, or peacebuilding if peace is presumed to be unattainable

(Coleman 2003). However, while the protraction of the conflict is likely to decrease

citizens’ expectations for peace, it is also likely to increase their wish for peace. The

ongoing violence should, if anything, raise citizens’ desires to stop the bloodshed

and alleviate the suffering. The wish for peace should thus be high among those

enmeshed in protracted conflict leading to increased motivation to engage in peace-

promoting behaviors.

The interplay between wishing for a certain political outcome (in our case:

“peace”) and expecting it materialize has a markable effect on political behaviors

of publics and statespersons (Jervis 1976; Greenaway et al. 2016; Havel 1990).

This interplay is captured in the construct of hope (Stotland 1969; Staats 1989;

Lopez and Snyder 2003). Webster’s dictionary defines hope as a “desire accom-

panied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.” Hope can thus be understood as

an amalgam of two factors, a desire (i.e., wish) to attain a goal and some expecta-

tion (i.e., assessment of likelihood) that the goal can be attained (Staats and Stassen

1985; Stotland 1969; Averill, Catlin, and Chon 1990; Erickson, Post, and Paige

1975). It should be mentioned that the everyday use of hope is confusing. Some-

times hope is used to signify a wish, without assessing the likelihood of attainment

(e.g., “I hope this email finds you well”). On other occasions, hope signifies

expectations as when discovering original findings increases one’s “hopes” for

journal publication.

Because of its centrality to political processes, hope for peace (or lack thereof)

has been a popular research topic among conflict scholars (Antonovsky and Arian

1972; Dowty 2006; Halperin et al. 2008; Sagy and Adwan 2006; Stone 1982; Rosler,

Cohen-Chen, and Halperin 2017; Hasan-Aslih et al. 2019; Cohen-Chen, Crisp, and

Leshem and Halperin 1391