Navigating From Negative to Positive Peace: A Quantitative Analysis of Youth Attitudes in Cyprus

Abstract

The Cyprus problem has persisted for over half a century, resulting in a state of negative peace rather than positive peace based on social integration and mutual trust. Although today’s youth have grown up within this divided status quo, the opening of checkpoints in 2003 has enabled intermittent intercommunal contact, raising questions about how young Cypriots envisage peace and under what conditions their attitudes may shift. Although there is growing recognition of young people in international frameworks, their perspectives remain marginal in Cyprus and there is limited systematic comparative evidence. This article contributes to the literature by providing rare comparative quantitative evidence on the factors shaping support for three interrelated indicators of positive peace: openness to intercommunal contact, voting intentions in a future reunification referendum, and support for additional checkpoints. The findings demonstrate that intercommunal contact can contribute to more positive attitudes towards peace, while also highlighting important differences between the two communities, underscoring the contextual nature of youth attitudes in a divided society.

Keywords

intercommunal contact youth agency positive peace checkpoints referendum

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