Disentangling the Relationship Between Prospective Expectations and Policy Preferences in Violent Conflicts
Disentangling the Relationship Between Prospective Expectations and Policy Preferences in Violent Conflicts (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123425100550) was written by Alon Yakter and Liran Harsgor in 2025. It was published in the British Journal of Political Science (vol. 55).
The authors primarily analyze data from the Peace Index project, a survey of Jewish Israelis that selects a fresh sample every month. It has been administered continuously for decades; in particular the authors use two 4-point scale questions that have been asked from from July 2001 to March 2020:
- "Do you believe or not believe that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will lead in the coming years to peace between Israel and the Palestinians?"
- "What is your position on conducting peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority?"
They use VAR and the Granger causality test to identify consistent temporal ordering between these two, i.e. the direction of causality between expectations for peace and support for compromise. The model accounts for 4 monthly lags.
They find find that prospective expectations Granger-cause preferences for negotiations. Graphing the Orthogonalized Impulse Response Function (OIRF) with a 95% confidence interval demonstrates that the effect diminishes over time but remains significant for 16 months. There is no statistical significance for the inverse relationship.
To validate the causal mechanism at the individual level, they look to a UESD framework. The authors control for gender, age group, education, and religiosity. In an effort to control for political identities that may interact with the treatment, they split the sample between left and right partisans for separate tests.
For a negative shock, they look to Hamas' surprise victory in the 2005 elections in Gaza.
- This event is covered by the Peace Index Project that was used for the prior analysis. The control group was interviewed Nov 28-29 and Dec 26-27, 2005. The treatment group was interviewed Feb 27-Mar 1 and Apr 3-4, 2006.
- The authors find a significant negative treatment effect among the general population and across partisan subgroups.
- The degree of the estimated effect is notably larger among right-wing partisans.
For a positive shock, they look to Sadat's visit in Nov 1977.
- This event is covered by the Continuing Survey series by the Israel Institute for Applied Social Research. The control group was interviewed Oct 6-9 and Oct 20-22. The treatment group was interviewed on Nov 21-23 and Nov 30-Dec 4.
- Willingness to compromise is estimated from a 5-point scale: "Regarding the territories held by Israel since the Six-Day War, what is the greatest concession that you think should be made for peace with the Arab countries?"
- The authors find a consistent and significant positive treatment effect among the general population and across partisan subgroups.