Research on postwar peace focuses primarily on how elites and institutions can prevent relapse into civil war. In line with this special issue’s focus on citizens’ experiences, we take a micro-level approach to explore peace beyond the absence of war. We investigate how members of opposing sides experience peace a decade after a decisive victory of the majority. Using original survey data from a representative sample of 2000 respondents in 2018 Sri Lanka, we find that even one decade after the conflict members of the Sinhalese winning majority are consistently more likely to report improvements in peace than Tamils, who were represented by the defeated minority. But the benefit of a “victor’s peace” does not seem to translate into an optimistic outlook of the victorious group, nor does it increase people’s endorsement for repressive state measures. Despite the drastically improved physical security for the defeated ethnic minority since the war, they experience a deterioration in other dimensions of peace. Our findings have important implications for a deeper understanding of variations in peace and reconciliation processes.

对战后和平的研究主要集中在精英和机构如何防止重新陷入内战。与本期特刊关注公民体验相一致，我们采用微观层面的方法来探索没有战争之后的和平。我们调查在多数人取得决定性胜利十年后，对立双方的成员如何体验和平。使用 2018 年斯里兰卡 2000 名受访者的代表性样本的原始调查数据，我们发现即使在冲突十年后，僧伽罗人获胜的多数成员始终比泰米尔人更有可能报告和平改善，泰米尔人以被击败的少数人为代表. 但“胜利者的和平”的好处似乎并没有转化为胜利集团的乐观前景，也没有增加人们对压制性国家措施的认可。尽管战败后少数民族的人身安全得到了极大的改善，但他们在其他方面的和平却在恶化。我们的发现对于更深入地了解和平与和解进程的变化具有重要意义。