Abstention as a Legacy of Violence : An investigation into enduring impacts of violence on politicalparticipation in the Colombian peace referendum of 2016

The Peace referendum of 2016 was an attempt by the Colombian government under president Juan Manuel Santos to seek popular ratification for the newly signed peace agreement with left-wing guerilla group FARC, after more than half a decade of hostilities. When the ballots closed, however, it was with a record high abstention, and a small majority of votes for the No-side. Despite enjoying a decrease of violence and being in the national and international spotlight, conflict areas displayed a particularly high abstention - largely missing from the ballots were the victims of the conflict themselves. Through a mixed method approach, this field study inquires into the potential role enduring effects of violence played, building on Ojeda’s psychological theories of political participation and the substantial scholarly body on mental health outcomes of violence. Challenging the dominating theory of contemporary violence as the cause for abstention, it finds support for an enduring impact of past violence on political participation on an aggregated level. This is partly contradicted by the answers given by inhabitants of Colombian municipalities Valdivia and El Retiro, where interviews and surveys were conducted in the winter of 2018. Nonetheless, the answers of the residents provide important and noteworthy implications, as the effects of violence appear to transform depending on the milieu in which its victims are situated.