WAPOR Annual Conference 2024 presentations including:

1. "The Benjamin Netanyahu years and the Middle East pace process" in the session Public Opinion Research in Times of War.
2. "From Peace Polls to AGI, Inclusive and Transparent" in Key-note roundtable on Humanity.

A video version of 2 presented by Colin Irwin, is also available by selecting this link.

Colin receives the 2023 WAPOR Asia Pacific Lifetime Achievement Award

Dr Colin Irwin is a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Liverpool. He is the founder of Peace Polls, an initiative which is unique, first of its kind policy intervention tool with global values to seek and support peace in conflict areas using Public Opinion Research. He was the principal investigator on the project 'Peace Building and Public Policy in Northern Ireland'. As part of the Northern Ireland peace process, he conducted eight public opinion polls in collaboration with the political parties elected to take part in the Stormont talks. Since then, he has extended his work around the world to include the Balkans, Middle East and Asia completing ‘peace polls’ in Macedonia in 2002, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2004, Serbia and Kosovo 2005, UK Muslims in 2006, Kashmir 2007, Israel and Palestine 2008, Sri Lanka 2009/10, Syria 2014 and Cyprus 2016/17. This work is reviewed in his book ‘The People’s Peace - Pax Populi, Pax Dei’ published in 2012.

Dr Irwin, or simply Colin to all the WAPOR friends, has been an ever-active colleague at every conference and meeting, with his impeccable research and understanding of transitional societies. His track record of professional integrity and academic excellence is unparalleled. As the most experienced academic using public opinion research in conflict areas, his list of achievements is endless. But what makes Dr Colin even more special is his desire to learn from warring factions while developing his research instrument. His effortless ability to talk and understand different point of views and transparent-to-the-core work ethics that even the worst of the conflict creators can actually trust the pace making process.

Dr Irwin has a multi-talented personality. He was born in England where he grew up on the south coast attending school and art college in Bournemouth. As Scientific Officer of the British Sub-Aqua Club he salvaged a Bronze Age craft from Poole Harbour in 1964 and lived in the first underwater house with an artificial atmosphere in 1965. In 1968 he turned his attention to the Canadian Arctic and in the 1970s where he sailed the Northwest Passage, crossed Arctic North America by dog team and voyaged from Scotland to Iceland, Greenland and Hudson’s Bay, living all along with the Inuit community. This journey had a major impact on his personal life and future professional choices. He received his joint Master’s Degree in Anthropology, Religious Studies and Philosophy from the University of Manitoba in 1981 with a thesis on Inuit ethics and a Doctorate in Social Science from Syracuse University in 1984 with a dissertation on the nature of human conflict and how the Inuit developed a culture and society without war. Today, as an expert on public opinion, public diplomacy, and peace processes he has advised the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO) on their procedures and best practice; lectured in the US, UK, Europe, Middle East and Asia and authored over 100 articles, papers, and books on these topics. As a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Liverpool he is presently developing a perception based ‘People’s Peace Index’ to globalise and mainstream his ‘peace polls’ methods in all peace processes.

It is our privilege and honour to bestow the WAPOR Asia Pacific Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 to Dr Colin Irwin, not just for his unparalleled achievements in the field of public opinion research, but also for being a truly remarkable torchbearer of peace making and uninterrupted, uncompromised flow of people’s perceptions even in the worst possible conflict areas. For being a brand ambassador not just for the public opinion research in transitional societies, but also for the WAPOR values and ethos, that we all share and cherish.

OpenAI awards grant to the RemeshAI team to fund experiments in setting up a democratic process for deciding what rules AI systems should follow, within the bounds defined by law.

Download the RemeshAI team paper that develops AI assistant policies for questions about Medical Issues, Vaccines, and Conflicts and War - attached.

AI, Peace Polls and Public Diplomacy

Employing the latest AI technology (Bilich et al. 2019) or traditional face-to-face public opinion polls (Irwin 2020) makes no difference to the political realities of using public opinion and public diplomacy for effective peace making. In this paper the author compares and contrasts the peace polling and public diplomacy employed in support of the Northern Ireland peace process 25 years on from the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (Agreement 25 2023, Irwin 2002) with equivalent UN work in Yemen (OSESGY 2020) and Libya (Irwin et al 2021) using Remesh AI Large Scale Digital Dialogues, and making peace in the frozen conflicts and wars of Eastern Europe: Moldova, Transnistria, Ukraine, Crimea and the Donbas, with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Critically the vetoes of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council and OSCE Member States not only fail to stop wars but also prevents effective peace making through public diplomacy that engages with the opinions of the publics caught up in these conflicts. The success of the Northern Ireland peace process provides us with a ‘work around’ for these apparent intractable political problems. The British Government as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council was able to veto any ‘mischievous’ interference from other UN Member States in Northern Ireland and the parties/sides to the conflict were allowed to manage their own NGO funded informal public opinion/public diplomacy peace process in parallel with the formal Governments’ led negotiations (Irwin 2002). Polling from Moldova suggests the publics there want peace (Koneva 2022), could make peace (SeeD 2022) and would welcome the same opportunity to manage their own peace process (The Government of the Republic of Moldova, 2022). Perhaps, when all else fails, all publics should be given the opportunity, tools and resources, AI or otherwise, to make peace if they can.

References

Agreement 25 (2023) Queen’s University Belfast, April 17-19.

Bilich, J., Konya, A., Masood, D., and Varga, M. (2019) Faster Peace via Inclusivity: An Effective Paradigm to Understand Populations in Conflict Zones, AI for Social Good Workshop at NeurIPS, Vancouver, Canada.

Irwin, C., Masood-Alavi, D., Waehlisch, M., Konya, A., (2021) Using Artificial Intelligence in Peacemaking: The Libya Experience, WAPOR 74^th Annual Conference, November 2-6.

Irwin, C., (2020) The People’s Peace Second Edition: Public Opinion, Public Diplomacy and World Peace, CreateSpace, Scotts Valley, CA, p. 4.

Irwin, C., (2002) The People’s Peace Process in Northern Ireland, Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2002.

Koneva, E., (2022) Moldova and Transnistria in the context of Russia’s war with Ukraine.

OSESGY News (2020) Cutting-Edge Tech in the Service of Inclusive Peace in Yemen, 3 August.

SeeD (2022) About SCORE Moldova.

The Government of the Republic of Moldova (2022) THE TRANSNISTRIAN ISSUE WAS THE SUBJECT OF DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN THE HEAD OF THE REINTEGRATION POLICY OFFICE ALIN GVIDIANI AND THE RESEARCHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL, DR. COLIN IRWIN. 19 July.

Government of the Republic of Moldova Peace Poll Links

https://gov.md/ro/content/tematica-transnistreana-fost-obiect-al-discutiilor-dintre-seful-biroului-politici-de

https://www.flickr.com/photos/parliamentrm/albums/72177720300700547

https://www.flickr.com/photos/parliamentrm/albums/72177720300832368/with/52242231216/

Translation from Government Notice

THE TRANSNISTRIAN ISSUE WAS THE SUBJECT OF DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN THE HEAD OF THE REINTEGRATION POLICY OFFICE ALIN GVIDIANI AND THE RESEARCHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL, DR. COLIN IRWIN

The approaches, priorities and activities carried out by the authorities of the Republic of Moldova on the issue Transnistrian and in relation to the inhabitants on both banks of the Dniester, from the perspective of promoting the desired reunification of the country, were discussed during a meeting between the head of the Reintegration Policy Office Alin Gvidiani and the researcher of the University of Liverpool, Dr. Colin Irwin.

The positive actions and benefits offered on the right bank were highlighted, their substantial impact in generating the atmosphere of unity and interconnection, the need to promote democratic values, fundamental human rights, confidence measures and sustainable development projects, as elements emphasized able to stimulate progress in the process of final, peaceful and comprehensive settlement of the Transnistrian conflict.

Panel No. 7. WAPOR 75th Annual Conference, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 10-13 November 2022.

Colin Irwin, University of Liverpool

Panel Abstract ‘Ukraine: Public opinion in a time of war’

Public opinion on the war in Ukraine is subject to the political interests of the UN member state’s relationship to that war. These interests are given shape and agency by the state’s media environment ranging from ‘free and fair’ to managed Orwellian state control. In this environment how can we objectively measure public opinion and draw conclusions about what is ‘true’? How can our framing of questions asked and interpretation of results in context help us to understand the phenomena of ‘war, peace and public opinion’ in our efforts to promote peace and prevent violent conflict?

The war in Ukraine provides us with a ‘natural experiment’ to explore these questions through the comparative study of public opinion in a number of UN member states that includes the protagonists, Russia and Ukraine, their respective allies around the world, and third party states that might view the war as simply a European affair. The panel includes papers on public opinion in the years leading up to and during the war in Ukraine and Russia with a focus on their populations support for the war and their nations objectives. Other papers include opinion in a selection of European, NATO and non-NATO states from around the world, allied, or not, with Ukraine or Russia. Additionally, given the involvement of the US and Russia in the wars that presaged the war in Ukraine, most notedly Syria, public opinion from the Arab world is included.

The war in Ukraine marks a paradigm shift in world affairs that distracts us from the existential threats of climate change and a mismanaged world. But did it have to be so? Did we ‘sleep walk’ through currents of public opinion unfolding on the world stage that brought us to this tragedy that should and possibly could have been avoided?

Paper Abstract ‘Public Opinion and Global Security’

With the invasion of Ukraine by Russia the prospect of a third world war became a reality if NATO forces engaged with Russian forces in the defence of Ukraine. In this context the imperative to give adequate attention to the needs of humanity and the planet in terms of global pandemics, climate change and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are not being given the attention they require. Together these threats of world war and environmental collapse posse an existential threat to the entire global population. With all these points in mind the research proposals for a World Peace Poll published and discussed at numerous WAPOR conferences are visited again and placed in the context of the author’s work with the UN and OSCE over the past two years. Research in the public domain is reviewed from Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Kashmir, Sudan, Bolivia, Iraq, Moldova and Transnistria to illustrate the successes, failures and lessons learnt using both AI Digital Dialogues and conventional public opinion polls. It is concluded that with the deployment of a World Peace Poll to provide both baseline and tracking data on all conflicts it would be possible to better prepare the world and mitigate the existential threats to world peace and security in this our twenty third century.

References

Irwin, C. J., Masood-Alavi, D., Waehlisch, M., Konya, A., Using Artificial Intelligence in Peacemaking: The Libya Experience, WAPOR 74th Annual Conference, November 2-6, 2021.

Irwin, C., Gilani, I., Gilani, M. B., A critical review of the UN75 Global surveys presented to the 2020 UN General Assembly, WAPOR 73rd Annual Conference, October 6-10, 2020.

Irwin, C. J., The People’s Peace Second Edition: Public Opinion, Public Diplomacy and World Peace, CreateSpace, Scotts Valley, CA, (2020).

As part of the Libya panel download the paper "Using Artificial Intelligence in Peacemaking: The Libya Experience" as part of the 2021 WAPOR Annual Conference 'Speaking Truth to Power: Public Opinion in a Time of Crisis'.

Read the UN 'Innovation Cell' Department of Political and Peace Building Affairs (DPPA) Futuring Peace article: What the "Lords of the Arctic" teach us about Inclusive Peace. Available on their website here:

https://medium.com/futuring-peace/what-the-lords-of-the-artic-teach-us-about-inclusive-peace-9099680fe13a

Also available as a pdf below:

A Critical Review of the UN75 Global Surveys Presented to the 2020 UN General Assembly

Presented at the WAPOR 2020 Annual Conference 6-10 October by Colin Irwin, Ijaz and Bilal Gilani.

Download both the Paper and PowerPoint below:

The People's Peace Second Edition is now available as a paperback and as a free pdf free pdf download. The new edition includes chapters on Cyprus and frozen conflicts, Syria, a World Peace Poll and World Peace and Truth Telling.

Dr Colin Irwin gave a Keynote address on the role of peace polls in the resolution of conflicts with special reference to Kashmir. The one day conference -Mantrana - was organised by the Social and Political Research Foundation, Polstrat and Team CVoter, at the International Centre, Delhi, India on the 27th of January 2020.

Colin Irwin presents his paper 'Public Opinion and the Politics of Peace Research' at WAPOR Asia in Delhi, India. The paper and PowerPoint are copied below:

Colin Irwin presented his paper 'Cyprus Lessons: How to melt a frozen conflict' at the World Association of Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) Annual Conference in Marrakech June 27-30, 2018. Also for a Korea peace process update see the Korea Herald Colin Irwin and Seongwon Yoon 'A Tale of Two Peace Processes'. Download the PowerPoint and Paper here...

Colin participated in a workshop to help develop the PhD projects of students dealing with problems of conflict resolution in Nigeria and Ghana. Here is a link to their Project Website.

Critical issues in the Cyprus negotiations... download the full report

Cyprus Peace Poll 1 English
Cyprus Peace Poll 1 Greek
Cyprus Peace Poll 1 Turkish

Confidence Building Measures 'Peace is not enough': Download the full report

Cyprus Peace Poll 2 English
Cyprus Peace Poll 2 Greek
Cyprus Peace Poll 2 Turkish

Peace Polling Can Prepare Ground for Mediation

Colin Irwin will present his paper Constructing a 'World Peace Poll' in an age of Global Conflict: Sample Designs for Monitoring and Tracking Conflict in Global, Regional, Transnational, National and Local Contexts to be held in Buenos Aires from June 16 to 19, 2015. Read more about the People's Peace Index on the 'Peace Index' page.

Download the paper Pilot Study for a 'People's Peace Process' in Syria that Colin Irwin presented at the WAPOR Regional Conference on March 8, 2015. Also download the PowerPoint presentation 'People's Peace Process' in Syria PowerPoint used for his lecture.

Download the Syria Pilot Peace Poll Report here with the full questionnaire and all the results and the short TDA Report in English or the TDA Report in Arabic. The research was undertaken between May and October 2014 across Syria following a Peace Polls Workshop in Gaziantep.

Colin Irwin will present his paper A Critical Review of Perceptions Based and Fact Based Peace Indicators and Indexes at the 67th WAPOR Annual Conference to be held in Nice, 4 - 6 September 2014. Read more about the People's Peace Index on the 'Peace Index' page.

At the 66th WAPOR Annual Conference in Boston (from May 14 to 17, 2013) Dr Irwin will present a paper The Development of a People's Peace Index (PPI) with Yashwant Deshmukh of the Team CVoter Foundation, India.

Colin Irwin participated in a workshop on 'Understanding and Integrating Local Perceptions into Multi-dimensional Peacekeeping Operations' held in Kampala, Uganda February 26-28, 2013 organised jointly be the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UN DPKO) and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).

Peace Making Lessons from Northern Ireland to Israel and Palestine: Lesson 1 - Inter-track dialogue and diplomacy.

At the 65th World Association of Public Opinion Research Annual Conference in Hong Kong (from 14-16 June 2012) Dr Irwin will present a paper that summarises the conclusions of his recent book with the title PAX POPULI, PAX DEI - Ten Years of Peace Polls In Comparative Perspective. His paper will be illustrated with a PowerPoint presentation.

Is available as a Kindle eBook and as a paperback. It reviews all the peace polls completed in Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, the UK ‘West and Muslim World’ and ‘War on Terror’, Israel and Palestine, Darfur Sudan and the Arab Spring.

The original of - The Peoples Peace Process in Northern Ireland - is now available as a paperback.

With continued violence and negotiations between the government of Sudan and rebel groups making little progress the Darfur Peace Poll opens a window on the most modest aspirations of the people for the basic necessities of life (water, food and health care), equal treatment, justice and democracy. At a cost of 2 billion USD per year the largest UN humanitarian program in the world could transform the lives of the people of Darfur if turned to development.

Download the full Darfur Peace Poll Report here or read the shorter Darfur Peace Poll Paper.

Following renewed violence in Kashmir this summer new data was collected in the turbulent Kashmir Valley in August with the results published in The Sunday Indian on 12 September 2010. Download the full story and results Kashmir - People want to move on here.

Watch the video of an interview with Dr. Colin Irwin and view the full seminar on YouTube in 3 Parts 'The potential for peace in the Middle East Part I' - 'Part II' and 'Part III' hosted at Europa House, Dublin on 15 January 2010. Also available is a seminar he gave at the American University of Beirut as well as a public briefing in 6 Parts that he chaired in Washington at the House of Representatives Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V and Part VI.

Download the full Report 'War and Peace' and the APRC Proposals for a summary of the All Party Representative Committee's proposals for constitutional reform in Sri Lanka and a detailed analysis of the public's support for them before the end of the war in March 2009 and after the war a year later in March 2010. Read The Tamil Referendum v The APRC Proposals for a comparison with the views of the Sri Lanka diaspora around the world.

Read the paper Israel and Palestine Peace Polls: Public Opinion and Peace Making in Comparative Perspective for an analysis of the public diplomacy failures of the Israel Palestine peace process presented at Al-Quds University, Palestine, September, 2009.

Read the paper Israel and Palestine Peace Polls: Public Opinion and Peace Making in Comparative Perspective for an analysis of the Israel Palestine peace process presented at the WAPOR Annual Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, September, 2009.

Download the full Report The ARRC Proposals and 'Winning the Peace' for a summary of the All Party Representative Committees proposals for constitutional reform in Sri Lanka and a detailed analysis of the publics support for them. Read the Press Release for a one page review.

Read the Report Pakistan administered Kashmir v Indian administered Kashmir: Getting Beyond a Referendum for the results of the first peace poll from PaK. With the results of an earlier poll from IaK this report explores the way forward for this troubled region.

Read the Report Israel and Palestine: Public Opinion, Public Diplomacy and Peace Making. In the latest peace poll from Israel and Palestine both Palestinians and Israelis reaffirm their desire for a two state solution and the need for real negotiations that will bring an end to their conflict. The Report includes both Part 1 and 2.

The fieldwork to develop the questionnaires was undertaken by Colin Irwin and the research team in Israel and Palestine in November and December 2008. The fieldwork for the public opinion polls was undertaken by AWRAD of Ramallah and Dahaf of Tel Aviv following the elections in Israel in February 2009. Download the Palestine and Israel Questionnaire And Results.

OneVoice in Israel and Palestine invited Colin Irwin for consultations on problems relating to public opinion research, public diplomacy and peace making. Meetings were held in Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Jerusalem between September 7 and 11 with a seminar at the Arab World for Research and Development offices in Ramallah on Wednesday the 10th.

The 'Peace Polls' website was set up and is maintained by Platypus Consultancy of Northern Ireland. Peace has brought a period of regeneration to the City of Belfast including a 5 star hotel The Merchant (see photo).

Download the latest peace poll from Sri Lanka Peace in Sri Lanka: Negotiating with Northern 'Separatists'? with an appendix that includes all the results from the Northern Province. Read the full report for results from the rest of Sri Lanka.

Colin Irwin spent the month of August at his home in Belfast before returning to Liverpool in September. The City of Belfast is presently enjoying a period of new inward investment and regeneration. Belfast City Hall is now dominated by the new Belfast Wheel.

The 7th biannual WAPOR conference on research quality was held at the Villa la Collina in Cabenabbia, Italy, July 10-12, 2008. Many of the topics discussed were of particular relevance for peace polls including protecting the public from bad polls, engineering value change and dealing with complex issues by using concrete questions.

In the latest peace poll from Kashmir the people speak out against violence and look forward to a better future based on equal respect for all communities. Read the Short Report Peace in Kashmir: Myth and Reality and the Full Report with all the statistics, analysis and questions.

The first part of the Sri Lanka peace poll was published in the Daily Mirror on Saturday June 21st and the second part was published in the Daily Mirror on Monday June 23rd. Both the short and full reports of the Sri Lanka peace poll are available on this web site under 'Conflicts' and 'Sri Lanka'.

The World Association of Public Opinion Research held its 61st Annual Conference in New Orleans May 12th to May 16th. Colin Irwin presented the findings of the Kashmir peace poll undertaken with the Team CVoter Foundation from Delhi. Pradeep Peiris from Social Indicator in Colombo also gave a presentation on the impact of public opinion on the Sri Lanka peace process.

The World Association of Public Opinion Research held a regional conference in India from February 25th to 29th. It was organized by the Team CVoter Foundation in Delhi, Jaipur, Bharatpur and Agra and included a panel discussion on peace polls at the Habitat Centre, Delhi on Friday 29th.

The Social Indicator research team at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The Director of Social Indicator, Pradeep Peiris is sitting next to Colin to his right. The Social Indicator team completed the recent peace poll in Sri Lanka published in the Daily Mirror of Colombo.

Colin Irwin first met Sir Arthur C. Clarke at the Chelsea Hotel In New York in 1971 just before James Irwin went to the Moon in Apollo 15 and Colin went to Alaska to sail the Northwest Passage. They met a second time in Sri Lanka on 14 October 2007. Colin suggested humans had made few advances since the Inuit established a culture without war in the harshest environment on the planet. Sir Arthur pointed out that humans are only infants in the cosmic scheme.

The Team C-VOTER Foundation researchers with Shabir Shah the leader of the Democratic Freedom Party. He was one of many political leaders interviewed in Shrinagar.

Jammu in the District of Jammu, Kashmir, is one of the main centres for Pandit refugees and IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) who came here from the Pakistan side of the Line of Control (LoC) after Partition in 1947 and more recent violence in the Kashmir Valley.

Colin flew to Leh in Northern Kashmir on 4 October 2007 where he met with various leaders and representatives of the local communities in the District of Ladakh.

Colin Irwin flew to Delhi on September 25th. From there he will go to Kashmir for two weeks and then to Sri Lanka for a week to explore the possibilities of using peace polls in these conflicts. He returns to the UK on October 19th. The 'first stop' after Delhi was Leh in Northern Kashmir where the Dalai Lama has his summer residence.

WAPOR establish a committee to set international standards for 'Peace Polls' throughout the world and Colin will work with the C-VOTER Foundation of Delhi on a new Peace Poll in Kashmir.

September 19th - Flew to Berlin from Liverpool on Easyjet for just 40 return to attend WAPOR Conference and give a paper on the failure of the public opinion research community to properly understand the relationship between Radical Islam, Foreign Policy and the so called War on Terror.

Colin Irwin is presenting the paper: A Conflict in Search of a Peace Process Please see the WAPOR web site for more information.

Colin Irwin attended the Oslo Forum 2007 from June 26 to June 29, 2007. The forum is an annual event for mediators organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Humanitarian Dialogue.

Please see the Oslo Forum web site for more information.

Colin Irwin gave a paper at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on The Belfast Agreement: How to Win a Referendum and the Next Election.