Fostering Contact to Build Interreligious Peace: Mixed-Methods Evidence from Togo and Sierra Leone

Most religions aspire peace. Yet prayers, well-meant wishes, and hopes alone are not enough to make peace come true. Evidence shows that worldwide interreligious peace is declining. Prompted by the persistence of violence and hostility, Julia Köbrich pursued the overarching research question: How to maintain and foster interreligious peace? Four empirical chapters each take a different angle to offer answers to this question drawing on semi-structured interviews, survey and experimental data from Togo and Sierra Leone. These two contexts are pertinent cases for the study of interreligious peace because they have been able to maintain peace despite unfavorable conditions. Integrating peace research and social psychology, this dissertation builds on and contributes to research on intergroup contact as a tool for peacebuilding. It pursues two objectives: First, it investigates the role of positive and negative interreligious contact for interreligious peace, specifically construals of peaceful relations and interreligious attitudes. Second, it examines determinants of interreligious contact and contact preferences by focusing on factors that have the potential to inform peacebuilding strategies. Overall, the results highlight the importance of pro-mixing norms signaling that interreligious contact is common and welcome in society to maintain interreligious peace. The findings further motivate the development of peacebuilding practices that leverage inclusive religious ideas and knowledge of outgroup religious practices to encourage interreligious contact.