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A Communication Toolkit to Build Trust: Lessons from Northern Ireland’s Civil Society Peacebuilders

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Abstract

Civil society organizations (CSOs) have important roles to play in building trust in post-conflict societies. This research examined how 25 CSO peacebuilders use communication to build trust in Northern Ireland. Our findings suggest that peacebuilders work across different levels of society as trust intermediaries. Communication is central to CSO peacebuilders’ practice in engendering trust and in demonstrating their trustworthiness as individuals, inter-group facilitators and organizational representatives. Synthesized from our data, a communication toolkit from ‘low level’ communication intervention to ‘high level’ persuasion explains the strategies that CSO peacebuilders employ to mitigate distrust and nurture trust as they work towards peace in Northern Ireland. We propose this toolkit might be malleable to trust building in other conflict-affected contexts.

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Notes

  1. In early January 2017, the Executive collapsed when deputy First Minister, Martin McGuiness (Sinn Fein), withdrew support blaming his power-sharing partner, First Minister Arlene Foster (DUP), for mismanaging funds linked to a botched energy renewal scheme. The Executive remained dormant while civil servants, using enhanced powers, maintained governmental status quo to avoid a return to Westminster Direct Rule. This arrangement lasted until January 2020 when negotiation eventually enabled a return to power-sharing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Charis Rice

  2. Community Relations in Schools, Belfast, UK

    Emily Stanton

  3. School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Maureen Taylor

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  1. Charis Rice
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  2. Emily Stanton
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Correspondence to Charis Rice.

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Rice, C., Stanton, E. & Taylor, M. A Communication Toolkit to Build Trust: Lessons from Northern Ireland’s Civil Society Peacebuilders. Voluntas 32, 1154–1164 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-021-00376-0

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