The effect of information strategies on support for a peace agreement: An experimental study on the private sector in Afghanistan

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an experiment conducted before the 2021 regime change in Afghanistan that examined how different types of information strategies affected private sector support for a hypothetical peace agreement with the Taliban. We compared the impact of historical, pecuniary, and religious information on the stated preferences of Afghan business elites and employees in Kabul. The results show that historical information had less of an effect than pecuniary information on respondents' probability of accepting a peace agreement with the Taliban but a slightly larger effect than religious information. Although the context of the study has dramatically changed, the findings can inform practitioners and policymakers in mediating future peace negotiations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.