Moral Beliefs about Violent Political Conflict

The MoViCon project explores how people's moral judgments and social norms relate to political violence, with a focus on public attitudes. The goal is to understand the moral rules that govern the use of different types of violence, such as wars between countries and internal armed conflicts. The project studies the views of both political elites and everyday citizens on these issues. By developing new concepts and theories about the connection between morality and violence, MoViCon aims to test these ideas using a variety of data, including surveys and large-scale analyses of societal violence patterns. The project has already made significant strides. For instance, the team has created a theory on how democratic leaders handle violations of the principle of non-violence in politics. This will be tested on a large group of elected representatives. Additionally, the team has developed a theory on how moral norms affect people's opinions about politicians who support political violence, like those involved in the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. This theory is currently being tested through surveys in various countries, including the U.S. The project is also applying similar ideas to explore how citizens view violence between nations. While some findings are still in progress, the team has already published several important studies. These studies show, for example, that people tend to prefer non-violent protests because they see them as more morally justified than violent ones. The research also reveals that "naming and shaming" can influence governments' human rights behavior, and that moral norms shape how citizens feel about human rights issues. Another fascinating discovery is that attitudes toward democracy and political violence have deep historical roots, influenced by factors such as geography and long-term historical events.

Political violence within states is a global humanitarian burden. In the past century, armed political violence has drastically declined in some places, while it persists in others. Why? Current research identifies income growth, democracy and economic and political inclusion as drivers of peace. But, many countries experience persistent rates of political violence despite great income growth, improvements in democracy and political inclusion (such as India over the past 20 years), and some countries (such as Mongolia) remain remarkably peaceful despite widespread poverty, frail political institutions, and lingering social grievances. MoViCon proposes a new theory to solve these puzzles, focusing on a factor that has hitherto been neglected by comparative conflict researchers: Citizen’ moral beliefs about political violence. MoViCon will provide a new scientific explanation for political violence within states, focusing on moral beliefs about political violence held by citizen populations. The project will develop a new concept of moral beliefs about political violence, and a new scheme to measure this empirically using survey experiments in different countries. It will develop and test theories of how such moral beliefs are formed and change over time, and of how moral beliefs in populations affect actual levels of observed political violence. MoViCon will provide a new understanding of how moral beliefs about political violence change, are shaped, and how they contribute to conflict. Such an understanding will improve early warnings of where political violence is likely to occur, and refine our understanding of existing conflicts to better diagnose underlying drivers and prescribe pathways to peace. Finally, it will enable policy actors in the international community to target moral beliefs (among citizens) in their efforts to build peace around the world, through attitudinal campaigns and related interventions.