We can work on governance programs. We can work on poverty. We can work on education. But if violence will remain a legitimate tool at least this is how its perceived by the majority of people in the region, then whatever progress we can aim at will, as i said, be shortlived. We are trying to include this element in our interventions. We intervened, for example, in 2012 in a region between the christians and at that time what we told them in the first place is that there is a better way to address the issue of coincidin religious dates than dealing or adopting violence to solve it. And not only we told them that violence is not going to help them and to address this issue, but we also help them to find the middle ground to celebrate both christmas during the same week while avoiding or while preventing Violent Attacks from both groups. In the aftermath of the massacre, we also explained to sunni and shia tribes that resort to go violence will not advance the judicial process and that it will end in a perpetual cycle of violence. It will prevented safe return of idps and will not keep any of the sunnis or the shia safe. We adopted a similar approach in other smaller scale conflicts when we were there between a group of local public work contractors and the governor between kurds and arabs. So basically what were trying to do is to defensemmonstrate t people or to the communities that there are alternatives to violence whereby they can achieve what they want without necessarily going into unacceptable compromises. We also try to defensemmonstrat high cost of violence of and by doing so, as i said, we aim at triggering a process of social transformation whereby the violence is not considered any more as a legitimate tool but as something that is counterproductive in most of the cases. Now this might look trivial at first start but my assessment makes me confident this work is essential and should be an element of any intervention in the region. Of course this involves policy decisions at the level of the International Community to mainstream this dimension and the programs but it also involves and as the report highlights the role of the local actors including Civil Society and this kind of work because at the end of the day the agents of changes have to be local. The International Community can support but the change has to happen through indigenous actors. So the innocent question for this event and for the report was that if Good Governance can erode the support to militancy, my point is that the answer to this question is yes if so its a conditional yes, depending on whether an element of social transformation is built into the interventions that will address the governance issues. Thank you for your attention and im looking forward to comments and questions. Thank you, doctor. Before i ask my first question as the moderator, i want to encourage the panelists if they have comments on each others remarks, i would welcome any followup on those. I encourage a discussion here also between the panelists and also the same way we engage with the audience. So do you have sure. So one thing you said, which i think was very interesting is that two things actually. One was demonstrating the cost of violence as potentially productive and that theres not this link between poverty and support for extremism. Something we see very clearly in several years of survey Research Across pakistan,all parts of the country, not an arab country but a country that suffers tremendous amounts of political violence, is that generally it is the poor who are most negative towards Extremist Groups. So, again, the poor who dislike the groups the most. And we see a little bit of that in the survey data from iraq although its not as strong. Other thing, though, we see there is if you share information with people about the cost of violence to the country, you have a very strong effect on driving support for militant groups down. And this is across all kinds of militant groups. And that effect is strongest among the poor. And to suggest the intuition, at least in another context, intuition is borne out in large scale surveys across a number of years. I like sort of the question underneath the research which talks about how Good Governance can diminish support for isis and secretarial militias. It highlights that the violence is not coming from a point of belief, from a point of religious belief that you have to do this. Second, it gives hope that you can didminish that and Good Governance is the route to do that. And Civil Society is a good partner that could be worked with and i think this is one of the Success Stories of iraq post 2003. Its a paradigm shift because for a government to have another partner on the scene to be an active governance player is an important one and to see acceptability by the government and by the people more so to be a partner is an important one. There is support for armed groups and violent groups whether its isis or someone else and then there is the other thing dr. Lee talked about is that resort to go violence, and it may not become armed but violence as a means whether its a demonstration that turns into violence where its a government that may have resorpt ed to violence as a means to respond to societal demands and then also the perception that whether it was the kurds or the sunnis that when they had an ask of the government, when there was no c consensus and when there was no agreement the response was violence. So after through the research, through their interviews and this is a question for the panel, after the blood y conflicts that we have seen on these different stages, do we see at all any change at the policymaker level or the people level that theyre especially looking at the south . Looking it at the south at the demonstrations were close to breaking into violence sometimes. Do you feel that theres any change at the policymakers level, at the Community Level that resorting to violence may not be the way to address those differences . Because differences will stay. They will be part of humanity. They have been. The question is how do you deal with them . Specifically im interested in the observation from the conversations you had. Okay. So just a couple of points before addressing that particular issue. I think there were two things that particularly resonate d wih me reflecting on research. First of all, just this whole idea that, for example, poverty and a lack of Job Opportunities would drive young people into the hands of the arms of Extremist Groups, violent Extremist Groups. In a previous piece of research which is collected in this report, youth and consequences, available also here. What young people told our researchers was basically its not poverty. Its not a lack of Job Opportunities. Thats not the main driver in terms of sympathy or lack of sympathy for armed violent extremist grubs like al shabaab or the taliban, it was their own sense of marginalization and justice so, yes, all of these things layer over each other all of these things into play but for the people at the sharp end, the young people themselves, they felt excluded. They felt marginalized. Their own society was not responsive to them and was unjust towards them. And that, for them, was what drove them to either support or not support armed violent groups. And, again, thats reflected in the research we just conducted in iraq in that sectarian identifity is not the prime driver for sympathy for armed opposition groups. Thats the first thing just to kind of, i guess, support your own comments. Secondly, just to go back to the issue of the constructive role of iraqi Civil Society and basically improving governance isnt proven, its not true. What do we see and what does the research tell about how iraqis themselves view Civil Society and this begins to address your own point. First of all, what was witnessed in iraq over the last several years through its engagement. Weve witnessed, as nancy was saying, a fluorescence of Civil Society in iraq. Civil society in iraq is very vocal and active. And that level of vibrancy, that level of activity has also driven changes in perceptions among iraqis themselves and what they basically see as the usefulness of Civil Society and nonviolent ways of solving grievances and issues. When the first survey was carried out. Only 39 viewed a positive view of Civil Society. By the time the 2015 survey had increase d to 50 . So 50 of respondents saw Civil Society as a force for good. And as able to Broker Solutions around their own issues and perception perceptions of governance and injustice. Now i would like to open it up to the audience for questions. Please, if you raise your hand, a microphone will be brought to you and wait for the microphone. If you also please state your name and your affiliation. This is being carried live through cspan. A question here . You were talking about governance, you are thinking about accountabilities and the problem in the government or law enforcement, whether they have Something Like prosecuting like the United States or the governance and what do they have to change or correct . Whether credibility, reliability, corruption, i suppose, and what is the data for your research . When you look around maybe more reliable but when you are looking at the data and other time is fraudulent. So what you mean by change governance that make people feel better . What the Research Shows is when people had an expectation of improved governance, that really had a strong and powerful effect in terms of their own perceptions of using violence to solve problems. Expectations of basic Service Delivery. There have been numerous and practical examples on the ground he especially the last couple o years in iraq of Civil Society groups actually making government more accountable on whether thats the federal government or at governor level. The vast majority of respondents still see still perceive the government to, for example, be corrupt. They still see the government to be ineffective and not representative. When you look at whats happening on the ground that can change. So whether its a Civil Society group like cop flikt management and negotiation skills, moderating with the feft government in baghdad to talk about support for Civil Servants affected by the isis overtake of mosul, they can change Civil Service salaries, for example, and thats a real, tangible result. If you look down south, again, Civil Society groups were able to come together and change the way that they make that electricity provision which is pretty vital in iraq, distributed in a much fairer and transparent way. Or the Civil Society groups have gotten their own local governments to overlook their budget process. All of these are small, real tangible gains that show they can have a powerful role in making government more accountable. Kind of brokering that conversation between the citizen and the governing authorities and brokering that in a nonviolent, very focused way. Do any of you have a comment on this . I think one of the striking things you see in the data for this report is this disconnect between the general changes in expectations of government and the general changes and beliefs about corruption. So beliefs are increasing dramatically throughout the sample. And expectations of how governor will perform increased dramatically from 2004 to 2015. Theres not a sense in the survey to go to the question about corruption that corruption is incompatible with government performance. The survey seems to suggest that theres some set of changes going on in society where expectations are going up but people are expecting more of their government. There may be a tolerance for the inefficiencies or problems caused by corruption because theres two things in the western context you wouldnt think of them going up together so there has to be some tolerance. Question in the back . Hi, dale lawton with the office of opinion research. I wonder if you could answer sort of a nuts and bolts question about the surveys, tell me about the difference and methodology of the three. And how you think those might have affected the results. I mean, so my understanding from the work ive done with the data and the work my students have done with it is the results arent very sensitive to how you treat that. And thats the main difference. When you poke at the data hard and different governor and things like that. It doesnt seem like theres a lot that would drive the results. Im a project director for advisers but i want to be a grumpy academic for a second just like jake. My first question is about the relationship between Political Attitudes and political behaviors. My understanding in iraq which is limited is that its not sectarian violence and its not actually Political Attitudes but tribal that would lead to support for daesh. I could be wrong, i would love to hear. My second brief question is strong support and ive spent many years in the middle east. I think that responsibility comes with local media and im curious how you see any sort of intersection between Civil Society and media in changing this. We know that the recruitment magazine for daesh uses violence very heavily as a recruitment strategy. We know that it really turns kids on. I would love to see an enhanced role or call for responsibility for local media. Thanks. So just to pick up the point in terms of what is the survey telling us about the support for a specific group like isis. In fact the survey showed consistently very low levels of support for isis among the iraqi population. So thats basically what the survey tells us about that specific group. I dont think the survey survey did not poll the interaction between local media and Civil Society in terms of so this research doesnt particularly speak to the latter part of your yes. Part of your question. This whole question about violence turns young people on and is a driver for their recruitment into Extremist Groups, if you look at what the iraq report tells us, but also the youth and consequences report is telling us, the indicators are that that is not the case. Thats not the overwhelming factor. What young people tell us is that its their own sense of societal injustice towards them for example that would make them feel more sympathetic for an armed Extremist Group looking for an alternative solution in terms of correcting of what they see as the injustices rather than the violence itself. You raise an important point about the disconnect between behavior and attitudes. Its important to think about i think this in terms of what happens at the end of the day in terms of violence. Because malicious attitudes arent as much of a problem if theyre not accompanied by Malicious Behavior. And the ability to conduct Malicious Behavior depends on both your beliefs and what the community is willing do and how likely they are to alert other Community Bodies when you will engage in violence. So one way to think about the results of the survey is its probably not the case that youre getting a sample result on attitudes towards violence that is the right estimate of that for the population that might engage in violence. But its still really important because youre getting an estimate for the population in which those people are embedded. The community in which theyre embedded. And those communities can take a lot of actions to stop people from acting on their ideology. So its still important even if you dont have that direct link between ill respond this way on a survey and im likely to go pick up a gun. And when you think about the evolution of attitudes towards isis, its a shame the doctor from the iaacss isnt here because they have been doing the best Public Opinion work on this over a long period of time. And its generally the support for isis is quite low. It was dropping. And just the last few months, theyve done some surveys in mosul would suggest its picking up a little bit in mosul. But you dont have the right person on the panel to speak to that. I want to follow up on that and ask dr. Lee, ive heard you in other conversations comment on the issue of the youth, those born in those societies especially in the provinces after 2003 who have seen violence around them. If you could comment on how that may affect their vulnerability to being prone to violence. Yes. The point is that before getting into this, id like to make a very brief comment on the Political Attitudes and behavior. I think that if you talk to a majority of people in the region, you can see that there is a dual Standard Approach in this, that people deny praising violence, but in fact when they are prompted to act, they act to violence. If you talk about sectarianism and corruption, you would see the same issue. People deny the corruption, but when they want to do something for themselves, they dont hesitate to bribe someone. So there is dual standards that exist in the mind of the majority of the people in the region. This also should be taken into account. Back to the issue of the youth. Yes, i made previous comments about vulnerability of youth especially today 12, 13 years old, so they were born in 2003, they lived all their life in a context of conflict and violence. Many of these youths have seen hair dads, uncles or other peo