ABSTRACT
Over 60% of armed conflicts re-occur, highlighting the need to break cycles of violence. Challenging traditional views of youth as perpetrators or victims, we study their active peacebuilding in two post-conflict contexts: Northern Ireland and Colombia. Grounded in the theory of altruism born of suffering (ABS) and the Developmental Peacebuilding Model (DPM), we examined how historic, conflict-related suffering predicts youth peacebuilding at the microsystem level (prosocial behaviour) and mesosystem level (conflict-specific civic engagement). We further investigated whether these associations were moderated by empathy, critical reflection and age. We sampled adolescents and young adults in Northern Ireland (N = 186, M
age = 16.76, SD = 4.60) and Colombia (N = 283, M
age = 18.13, SD = 3.23) in a longitudinal survey across two time points. The contexts differ in post-conflict timelines (one generation versus half a generation since a peace agreement) and conflict adversaries (ethno-religious versus political groups). Historic suffering predicted youth peacebuilding at the mesosystem level. Older age strengthened the association between historic suffering and mesosystem peacebuilding in both countries, while critical reflection moderated this association only in Northern Ireland. These findings suggest that suffering may motivate youth to engage in broader civic processes rather than in direct outgroup-specific prosocial behaviour.