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This paper describes the use of conjoint survey experiments to identify citizen preferences with respect to a possible peace agreement in Cyprus and a border agreement in Northern Ireland. The recommendations offered in the conclusion emphasize the flexibility of the method and its transferability to other conflict settings. Results also suggest ways of reinvigorating stalled peace negotiations (Cyprus) or improving past deals (Good Friday Agreement/Brexit-Northern Ireland) and can help contending groups and mediators identify potential zones of agreement by revealing areas where contending groups’ preferences overlap or differ and where possible trade-offs exist that could lead to greater consensus. Conjoint experiment results can be presented in the form of visual opinion maps and incorporated into interactive software applications. Such applications allow policymakers and the public to examine the elements of peace settlement packages to assess their degree of support by different communities and to evaluate communities’ readiness for peace settlements. Conjoint survey analysis thus serves as a powerful tool for identifying citizen preferences in discrete postconflict situations.

Brexit is breaking peace in Northern Ireland and is the most significant event since the partition of Ireland in 1921. In 2021, Northern Ireland will commemorate its centenary, but Brexit, more than any other event in that hundred year history, has jeopardised its very existence. This book examines how Brexit has destabilised what is popularly known as the peace process in Northern Ireland. It assesses the impact of the Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations between the UK government and the EU on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and on political stability in Northern Ireland. And it explores the way in which Brexit brought contested political identities back into the foreground of political debate in Northern Ireland and how the future of the Irish border became an emblem for conflicting British and Irish visions of the future.