Over the last decade, national dialogues have become a popular tool for resolving civil
conflicts. National dialogues are a formal process of discussion and negotiation between
conflicted parties with the goal of agreeing on a set of policy changes that can secure a
sustainable peace. In recent years, such dialogues have been used in dozens of countries
and with varying levels of success. One likely driver of this variation in how successful
national dialogues are at fostering lasting peace has been their ability to gain public support.
In this study, we identify four key elements of dialogue design that are likely to impact both the potential for dialogue to result in a lasting peace agreement and the level of public support. Specifically, we focus on how representatives from various social and political groups are selected, which groups are represented, how these representatives are made accountable to the publics they represent, and how much scope representatives have to change fundamental rules of governance. We deploy a conjoint experiment in a survey of students at Addis Ababa University to test how these factors influence support for national dialogue plans.