Citizen Preferences about Border Arrangements in Divided Societies: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Northern Ireland

Border arrangements are often critical to the successful negotiation of peace settlements and the broader politics of post-conflict societies. However, developing an understanding of popular preferences about these arrangements is difficult using traditional surveys. To address this problem, we use a conjoint survey experiment to assess preferences about post-Brexit border arrangements in Northern Ireland. We map areas of convergence and divergence in the preferences about post-Brexit border arrangements of unionist and nationalist communities, simulate the degree of public support for politically plausible outcomes and identify the border arrangements that both communities can agree upon. In so doing, we outline an empirical approach to understanding public preferences about border arrangements that can be used to understand the degree of support for similar institutional arrangements in other divided societies.