Disentangling the Relationship Between Prospective Expectations and Policy Preferences in Violent Conflicts

Popular willingness to compromise is an important step for conflict resolution. A key argument suggests that improving expectations about the prospects of peace can increase public support for concessions. Yet a competing view, anchored in broader debates about preferences and expectations, suggests that prior ideological dispositions motivate biased future expectations rather than vice versa. This tension, however, remains understudied in violent conflicts. In this study, we leverage rich survey data from Israel to disentangle the causal relationship between expectations and preferences for compromise in a long-standing conflict. Using two decades of aggregate monthly series and two exogenous shocks to peace expectations, we find that changes in prospective expectations do predict subsequent shifts in support for compromise. We find no contrary evidence for a null, opposite, or heterogeneous relationship. The findings contribute to ongoing debates about the interrelations between expectations and preferences and provide insights into their implications for conflict resolution.