Trust and Public Support for the Colombian Peace Agreement

The 2016 Colombian peace agreement failed by a narrow margin when put to a public vote, but a month later, the legislature bypassed the need for public support officially ending the 52-year armed conflict between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC]. Today, few promises of the agreement have come to fruition, leaving Colombia’s rural population in need and causing some ex-combatants to return to the FARC. While some attributed failure of the peace agreement to low voter turnout, a better understanding of the public’s lack of support for the peace agreement is needed. This study uses logistic regression to analyze 2016 survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project to examine how institutional trust correlates with predicting support for the Colombian peace agreement. Variables such as public opinion regarding trust in government institutions (the legislature, executive, judiciary, and elections) and trust in the FARC, including a belief that the FARC will demobilize, are included within the study. The model supports the hypothesis that greater trust in institutions increases the probability that the respondent will support the peace agreement. Five of the six variables are statistically significant, and the trust in the national legislature variable is approaching significance. Future studies related to this topic should include greater analysis of Colombia’s rural population who was most affected by forced displacement and other forms of violence during the conflict.