Evidence shows that public policies – ranging from education and therapy to social protection, aid, and refugee support – can reduce violence by reshaping incentives, though effectiveness in fragile contexts remains uncertain.
Editor's note: This article is part of series covering CEPR's Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programme. Elena Esposito and Austin L. Wright are the ReCIPE Theme Leaders on Public Policies for Peace.
Global violence is surging. For the first time since WWII, over 50 armed conflicts erupt annually, mostly in low-income countries. Extremist militias, gang violence, and organised crime are destabilising societies – even in once-secure nations. Can public policy shift the incentives that fuel this violence? We turned to the evidence to find out.
Our review (Esposito and Wright 2025) focuses on policies that national or local governments can directly implement to influence the pool of potential perpetrators – either by expanding access to prosocial alternatives or increasing the costs and risks associated with violent behaviour. While these are not the only levers available to policymakers, others are addressed in the remaining ReCIPE themes.[1] From this research, we distilled five key lessons worth sharing, along with several avenues for future research.
Lesson 1: Teaching perpetrators of violence to recognise alternatives
When it came to reducing conflict and offering alternatives to young people in poverty-stricken communities, labour market programmes were long seen as the go-to solution – designed to create viable, non-violent pathways. But that view began to shift as evidence emerged showing that the impact of such programmes was non-existent (e.g. Blattman et al. 2014).
A new wave of research brought renewed hope to the field. Broadly speaking, this new approach is less about increasing the opportunity cost of violence by expanding alternatives, and more about teaching potential perpetrators to recognise and pursue those opportunities.
How can this be done? Among various strategies – such as counselling, socio-emotional skills training, and different forms of therapy – cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programmes that teach individuals how to interrupt harmful thought patterns, prevent impulsive or violent reactions, foster perspective-taking, and encourage other-regarding behaviours have proven particularly effective (Bhatt et al. 2024, Blattman et al. 2017). In essence, these programmes cultivate insights that support peaceful behaviour.
Lesson 2: Teaching soft skills for peace
And this is where much of the challenge – and promise – lies: education and educational policies.
Although the evidence on the causal impact of improved education on conflict remains notably limited, valuable insights can be drawn from research examining the relationship between education and criminal behaviour – assuming that various forms of violence share similar underlying drivers. In that context, the policy lesson is clear: more schooling, better schooling, and earlier schooling reduce the likelihood of engaging in violent behaviour (Lochner and Moretti 2004, Machin et al. 2011, Deming 2011, Heckman et al. 2010).
Much of this effect appears to be driven by the way education shapes personal traits and skills that foster non-violent behaviour. A striking insight from more recent research is that these skills can be improved through relatively short interventions – and that the effects can be long-lasting (Algan et al. 2022, Heller et al. 2017, Blattman et al. 2017).
This promising body of evidence now needs to be tested in contexts where ideological, institutional, political, and religious divisions compound individual hardship. Crucially, the drivers of criminal behaviour in the settings where these programmes were first tested may differ substantially from those motivating insurgents, rebel groups, and radicalised youth – and may, most importantly, reduce their willingness to engage with such programmes. More evidence is urgently needed to understand whether these interventions work in such contexts.
Lesson 3: Cushioning against stressors
If one approach to reducing violence is to teach individuals to take others’ perspectives and regulate impulsive reactions when triggered, a complementary strategy is to shield communities from potential triggers altogether. Research consistently shows that stress-inducing shocks increase the incidence of violence in various forms – ranging from riots and protests to civilian, interpersonal, and predatory violence. Such shocks include events as diverse as mass layoffs (Britto et al. 2022), agricultural disruptions (Fetzer 2020), extreme weather events (Hsiang et al. 2013), rising food prices, and epidemiological crises (Cervellati et al. 2022, Gonzalez-Torres and Esposito 2016).
Recent evidence increasingly shows that shock-cushioning policies – such as unemployment benefits (Britto et al. 2022), labour insurance (Fetzer 2020), and public health interventions (Berlanda et al. 2024) – can significantly reduce the risk of social violence.
Further research is needed to assess the effectiveness of stress-cushioning programmes in contexts characterised by high levels of informality and in situations where the state has limited implementation capacity.
Lesson 4: Foreign aid and cash transfers
In fact, state capacity – and a benevolent government – are prerequisites for these programmes to even exist. But what happens in situations where state fragility and political failure prevent the design and implementation of such programmes? Can foreign aid step in to compensate?
The short answer is it depends. First, evidence suggests that the peace-inducing effect of foreign aid is heavily dependent on the institutional quality of the recipient country (Dreher and Walter 2011, Collier and Hoeffler 2002). Second, the way aid is administered also seems to matter. Excessive and highly fragmented aid, especially when appropriable, can have detrimental effects (Nunn and Qian 2014, Djankov et al. 2009, Knack and Rahman 2007, Kimura et al. 2012, Child et al. 2024).
The good news is that an intervention as simple as cash transfers has been shown to promote peace effectively. Whether conditional or unconditional, these transfers can reduce participation in violence (Daly et al. 2021, Blattman and Annan 2013). Policy-relevant research is needed to inform how to deliver these transfers at scale, particularly in fragile settings where operational vulnerabilities and the risks of leakage or predation are significant.
Lesson 5: Policies for refugees and displaced communities
The final lesson concerns a major and growing source of violence and instability: refugee crises and displaced communities. Displacement is often triggered by violence and, in turn, can generate further violence, fuelling vicious cycles.
We lack research allowing for a systematic comparison of the three main options available: repatriation to refugees’ countries of origin, naturalisation in host countries, and resettlement in developed countries. Blair and Wright (2022) provide rare evidence from an attempt at refugee repatriation, examining a large-scale cash assistance programme for returnees in Afghanistan. Their findings show that cash-for-return did encourage repatriation but also exposed both returnees and host communities to heightened social conflict. Much more evidence is needed to inform what remains a crucial economic, political, and even ethical issue.
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