No-campaigns in peace referendums

Abstract

Peace agreements can be more effective and durable when being supported by the broad public through a peace referendum. However, after some peace negotiations, No-campaigns succeeded in convincing voters that the peace in question was not the right solution. This study seeks to advance the discussion of campaign support in peace referendums by studying the design and content of No-campaigns, in relation to their Yes-counterparts, and their role in gathering support against peace agreements. We argue that No-campaigns can become a risk to peace agreements when they employ a coherent strategy where its different elements such as organisation, logistics, and methodologies are integrated cohesively, and where they offer a unified content in terms of the message addressed to the public. These two aims are more difficult to accomplish for Yes-campaigns. We study this argument for the cases of the peace referendums in Northern Ireland in 1998 and Colombia in 2016.