This paper presents experiences from implementing a four-methods, transdisciplinary and integrated research design bringing together quantitative political scientists, behavioural scientists, anthropologists and other qualitative social scientists. The research seeks to achieve a link between behavioural research and qualitative conflict work to allow us to delve more deeply into a number of thematic areas that are of importance for understanding how to rebuild after violent conflict and prevent its recurrence.
We currently do not have a rigorous understanding of how perceptions (including those of what is or is not fair and inclusive), individual decisions, structural factors and behaviour interlink in situations of acute violent conflict or its aftermath. The same holds true for our understanding of how multiple, often multi-layered attempts to mitigate violent conflict have shaped perceptions and behaviour. Policies and programmes on post-conflict recovery implicitly or explicitly seek to change behaviour. Thus, an insight into how behavioural triggers make people decide and act ought to be at the heart of any transformative attempt of conflict mitigation, particularly if such understanding is deeply rooted in examination from various angles, through multiple methods and by applying different research philosophies. Integrated research including experimental behavioural work will allow us to unpack many of the assumptions that inform such post-conflict programmes.
We start our research using popular assumptions from peacebuilding programmes and service delivery, such as the importance of fairness or inclusiveness. However, how to define and achieve both in an environment that has experienced violent conflict is under-researched and is at the heart of this research project. The research thus has two objectives: First, we seek to develop a better grasp of what drives political decision making in post-conflict settings. As political decision making, we consider for example the choice to engage in violence or not, to participate in transformative conflict resolutions attempts, or to find constructive ways of memorialising a conflict for conciliatory transformation. Second, we aim to integrate different research methods in innovative ways to create a coherent research design in which each element contributes to deepening the quality of the other elements.
We do this by combining advanced methods from qualitative and ethnographic conflict studies with those of behavioural economics and quantitative closed-question research. Integrated design means that qualitative work is conducted according to sampling procedures that form the basis of the behavioural work. Further, qualitative work is used as treatment prime for the experimental work, thus creating both a valuable qualitative data set ready for integrated or separate analysis as well as feeding directly into the broader research design.
Behavioural science can use a lab environment to simulate some of the psychological mechanisms that are thought to drive behaviour in a post-conflict setting. Behavioural experiments are also still under-utilised in the African context, meaning that findings of behavioural mechanisms from very different cultures and contexts feed into current policies. It is hoped that insights gained through behavioural work in the Ugandan context about behavioural mechanisms can be used to support communal peacebuilding programmes, but also aid understanding of what can lead to more constructive individual choices in a post-conflict situation. The four types of research data are designed to enhance each other, for example by highlighting possible contradictions between what people say (the type of research on which a lot of post-conflict programming is based) and what they do (behavioural triggers that can only be isolated through experimental research), how they themselves weigh and the meaning of such discrepancies. The addition of quantitative data allows us to establish whether we can identify whether different groups of people act in consistently different ways.
In this paper, we reflect on the methodological lessons we have learned from using this complex, integrated research design, including a consideration of how those at the receiving end of behavioural experiment experienced this type of research. Has this approach given us more rigorous and grounded insights into what constitutes fairness and inclusion—and can these insights help in developing better policies and programme approaches?