Youth and Politics in Protracted Conflicts

The presentation will be based on the project’s representative sample survey of 536 Greek Cypriots and 550 Turkish Cypriots, enquiring into the wishes and expectations for the solution of the Cyprus problem by the youth in comparison to older people and the views of internally displaced people from both communities. Key findings indicate a clear majority of 66,5% among Greek Cypriots and 63,6% among Turkish Cypriots support Bizonal Bicommunal Federation. More importantly, the speakers will explore whether a settlement that assures political equality for the Turkish Cypriots and security (from Turkish influence) for Greek Cypriots could be acceptable to both communities simultaneously, as well as how committed each community is to alternative options such as two-state solution and unitary state.

Meet the speakers and chair

Huseyin Cakal is Assistant Professor in Social Psychology at Keele University where he runs the Intergroup Relations and Political Psychology (Inter-Pol) Lab. His work has covered the dynamics of collective action and prejudice reduction strategies, effects of social identity and intergroup contact on health, and intergroup emotions among advantaged and disadvantaged groups. He is the co-editor of Psychological Perspectives on Intra-Regional Migration and Intergroup Relations in Latin America (2021, APA) and lead-editor of Intergroup Relations in Turkey (in press, Routledge).  

Oded Adomi Leshem is a fellow at the Truman Research Institute and the Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Reconciliation Lab, at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His research is located at the nexus of political psychology and conflict resolution with a specialization in protracted ethnonational conflicts. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on the political psychology of hope and despair and on how political power shapes people's interpretation of the concept of peace.

Neophytos Loizides (@nloizide) is Professor in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent and the Director of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC). His research focuses on political institution building within violently divided societies, power-sharing and other formal or informal mechanisms aiming to mitigate protracted disputes. Professor Loizides is the author of The Politics of Majority Nationalism (Stanford, 2015) and Designing Peace (Upenn 2016) and Mediating Power-Sharing (with Cochrane and Bodson, Routledge 2018). His research is currently funded by a US Institute of Peace grant entitled Citizen Preferences in the Design of Effective Peace Settlements.

Charis Psaltis (@CharisPsaltis) is an Associate Professor of Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cyprus. He runs the Genetic Social Psychology Lab of the University of Cyprus and the University Centre for Field Studies. He worked as a Post-doctoral researcher at the Oxford Center for the Study of Intergroup Conflict, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. His work covers Intergroup Relations between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus, and specifically the development of prejudice in childhood and youth, history teaching and collective memory, intergroup contact and prejudice reduction. He is currently the national coordinator of Cyprus for the 10th Round of the European Social Survey.

Spyros Economides is Associate Professor in International Relations and European Politics at the London School of Economics and Deputy Director of the Hellenic Observatory. He was a Research Associate of the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College and at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He has also served as Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, USA, and in the Faculties of Political Science at the Universities of Zagreb, Croatia and Belgrade, Serbia. He was also a Visiting Fellow at the EU Centre in Singapore. His current research concentrates the external relations and security policies of the EU; Europeanisation and foreign policy, and the EU’s relationship with the Western Balkans. Dr Economides is also a regular commentator in national and international media on issues relating to Greece and those of the Western Balkans. His latest publication is Economides and Sperling (eds.) EU Security Strategies: Extending the EU System of Security Governance (2018).

The twitter Hashtag for this event is: #LSECyprus

The Hellenic Observatory (@HO_LSE) is internationally recognised as one of the premier research centres on contemporary Greece and Cyprus. It engages in a range of activities, including developing and supporting academic and policy-related research; organisation of conferences, seminars and workshops; academic exchange through visiting fellowships and internships; as well as teaching at the graduate level through LSE's European Institute.