Description
Which policies will citizens support to enable the reintegration ex-combatants into their communities? A central tension in the design of reintegration policies concerns the role of material benefits for former fighters. Research shows that giving ex-combatants this support is necessary to secure successful and peaceful reintegration. Many policy makers and scholars though are concerned that providing material benefits to former fighters risks backlash from potential host communities, which may view material support to former fighters as unfair. In this paper we examine how Nigerian respondents see this trade-off between fairness, on the one hand, and peace and security, on the other, when evaluating policy packages aimed at enabling reintegration of former Boko Haram fighters. Our study uses a conjoint survey and vignette experiment with 2,400 respondents evaluating 55,000 randomized policy packages across 8 attributes in two locations. In contrast to previous research, we find that most respondents are generally in favour of providing economic support to ex-combatants. More generally, economic benefits for former fighters, communities, and victims are more popular than non-material benefits or procedural issues. This suggests that respondents may prioritize peace and security over fairness, with implications for both theory and policy.
