IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/49na5.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Appeals For Peace Promote Tolerance and Mitigate Support for Extremism? Evidence from an Experiment with Adolescents in Burkina Faso

Author

Listed:
  • Grossman, Allison N.
  • Nomikos, William George
  • Siddiqui, Niloufer

Abstract

Recent efforts to improve attitudes toward outgroups and reduce support for extremists in violent settings report mixed results. Donors and aid organizations have spent millions of dollars to amplify the voices of moderate religious figures to counter violent extremism in West Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Despite this investment, we know little about whether such messaging persuades the primary recruits of violent extremist organizations: at-risk youth in fragile settings. In this paper, we consider whether pro-peace religious messaging can promote social cohesion among school-age respondents in Burkina Faso. Using a survey experiment, we find little evidence that such messages affect reported attitudes or behaviors towards religious extremism and find instead that it can have the unintended effect of increasing intolerance towards ethnic others. Our findings carry lessons about the inadvertent priming of ethnic identities that can result in a backlash effect among certain societal segments.

Suggested Citation

  • Grossman, Allison N. & Nomikos, William George & Siddiqui, Niloufer, 2021. "Can Appeals For Peace Promote Tolerance and Mitigate Support for Extremism? Evidence from an Experiment with Adolescents in Burkina Faso," OSF Preprints 49na5, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:49na5
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/49na5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/608a1d8e6801ab002b2a5a79/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/49na5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Nomikos, 2020. "Peacekeeping and the Enforcement of Intergroup Cooperation, Evidence from Mali," Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers 20, Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.
    2. Lyall, Jason & Zhou, Yang-Yang & Imai, Kosuke, 2020. "Can Economic Assistance Shape Combatant Support in Wartime? Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 126-143, February.
    3. Alberto Abadie & Susan Athey & Guido W Imbens & Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2023. "When Should You Adjust Standard Errors for Clustering?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 1-35.
    4. Scacco, Alexandra & Warren, Shana S., 2018. "Can Social Contact Reduce Prejudice and Discrimination? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 112(3), pages 654-677.
    5. Condra, Luke N. & Isaqzadeh, Mohammad & Linardi, Sera, 2019. "Clerics and Scriptures: Experimentally Disentangling the Influence of Religious Authority in Afghanistan," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 401-419, April.
    6. Scacco, Alexandra & Warren, Shana S., 2018. "Can Social Contact Reduce Prejudice and Discrimination? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Nigeria," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(3), pages 654-677, August.
    7. Siegel, Alexandra A. & Badaan, Vivienne, 2020. "#No2Sectarianism: Experimental Approaches to Reducing Sectarian Hate Speech Online," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 837-855, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vicente, Pedro C. & Vilela, Inês, 2022. "Preventing Islamic radicalization: Experimental evidence on anti-social behavior," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 474-485.
    2. Tilman Brück & Neil T N Ferguson & Valeria Izzi & Wolfgang Stojetz, 2021. "Can Jobs Programs Build Peace? [Intergroup Conflict and Intra-Group Punishment in an Experimental Contest Game]," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 36(2), pages 234-259.
    3. Leonardo Bursztyn & Thomas Chaney & Tarek Alexander Hassan & Aakaash Rao, 2021. "The Immigrant Next Door: Long-Term Contact, Generosity, and Prejudice," NBER Working Papers 28448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Mayuko Onuki & Keitaro Aoyagi & Yoshito Takasaki, 2021. "Personal Intergroup Contact Between Different Groups of Ex-Combatants and Civilians: Evidence from a Behavioural Experiment in Rwanda," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1174, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    5. Ferguson,Neil T. N. & Wolfe,Rebecca J. & Amine,Laila & Ramadi,Eric & Shahin,Lina, 2022. "Building Stability Between Host and Refugee Communities : Evidence from a TVET Program inJordan and Lebanon," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10101, The World Bank.
    6. Cáceres-Delpiano, Julio & De Moragas, Antoni-Italo & Facchini, Gabriel & González, Ignacio, 2021. "Intergroup contact and nation building: Evidence from military service in Spain," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    7. Antonela Miho & Alexandra Jarotschkin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2024. "Diffusion of Gender Norms: Evidence from Stalin’s Ethnic Deportations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 475-527.
    8. Leonardo Bursztyn & Thomas Chaney & Tarek Alexander Hassan & Aakash Rao, 2021. "The Immigrant Next Door: Exposure, Prejudice, and Altruism," Working Papers 2021-16, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    9. Humphreys, Macartan & Scacco, Alexandra, 2020. "The aggregation challenge," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    10. Sonia Bhalotra & Irma Clots-Figueras & Lakshmi Iyer & Joseph Vecci, 2023. "Leader Identity and Coordination," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 175-189, January.
    11. Freddi, Eleonora & Potters, Jan & Suetens, Sigrid, 2024. "The effect of brief cooperative contact with ethnic minorities on discrimination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 64-76.
    12. Sania Ashraf & Cristina Bicchieri & Upasak Das & Tanu Gupta & Alex Shpenev, 2024. "Learning from diversity: ``jati" fractionalization, social expectations and improved sanitation practices in India," Discussion Papers 24-01, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
    13. Pedro C. Vicente & Ines Vilela, 2020. "Preventing violent Islamic radicalization: experimental evidence on anti-social behavior," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2008, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    14. Maiti, Surya Nath & Pakrashi, Debayan & Saha, Sarani & Smyth, Russell, 2022. "Don't judge a book by its cover: The role of intergroup contact in reducing prejudice in conflict settings," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 533-548.
    15. Unfried, Kerstin & Ibañez Diaz, Marcela & Restrepo-Plazaz, Lina Maria, 2022. "Discrimination in post-conflict settings: Experimental evidence from Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Gautam Rao, 2019. "Familiarity Does Not Breed Contempt: Generosity, Discrimination, and Diversity in Delhi Schools," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(3), pages 774-809, March.
    17. Serena Canaan, Antoine Deeb, Pierre Mouganie, 2023. "The Impact of Religious Diversity on Students’ Academic and Behavioral Outcomes," Discussion Papers dp23-12, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    18. Beber, Bernd & Lakemann, Tabea & Schnars, Regina & Lay, Jann, 2024. "Employment effects of skills trainings in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of recent randomized controlled trials," Ruhr Economic Papers 1080, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    19. Di Maio, Michele & Fasani, Francesco & Sciabolazza, Valerio Leone & Molini, Vasco, 2022. "Facing Displacement and a Global Pandemic: Evidence from a Fragile State," IZA Discussion Papers 15134, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Matthew Lowe, 2020. "Types of Contact: A Field Experiment on Collaborative and Adversarial Caste Integration," CESifo Working Paper Series 8089, CESifo.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:49na5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.