Secular Party Rule and Religious Violence in Pakistan (with Gareth Nellis) (American Political Science Review 112(1): 49-67, 2018)
Does secular-party incumbency affect religious violence? Existing theory is ambiguous. On the one hand, religiously-motivated militants might target areas that vote secularists into office. On the other hand, secular party politicians, reliant on the support of violence-hit communities, may face powerful electoral incentives to quell attacks. Candidates bent on preventing bloodshed might also sort into such parties. To adjudicate these claims, we combine constituency-level election returns with events data on Islamist and sectarian violence in Pakistan (1988–2011). Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare districts where secular parties narrowly won or lost elections. We find that secularist rule causes a sizable reduction in local religious conflict. Additional analyses suggest that the result stems from electoral pressures to cater to core party supporters, and not from politician selection. The effect is concentrated in regions with denser police presence, highlighting the importance of state capacity for suppressing religious disorder. We discuss how the findings inform policy debates surrounding democracy promotion efforts in weakly institutionalized, conflict-ridden environments.
Who Do You Believe? Political Parties and Conspiracy Theories in Pakistan (Party Politics 26(2), 2020)
In authoritarian states, emerging democracies, and well-established democracies alike, alternative accounts that contest official state narratives flourish. Why do people believe such accounts even in the absence of supporting information? While this question has been explored in the United States, little research has assessed it in other contexts. Using a survey experiment carried out in Pakistan, this paper tests the impact of cues by political parties on belief in such conspiracy theories. The results provide evidence in favor of partisan cueing despite Pakistan’s weakly partisan environment: when alternative narratives are endorsed by parties viewed favorably by the respondent, they are more likely to be believed. Survey results also suggest that greater political knowledge—rather than inoculating individuals against conspiracy theories—was associated with a greater likelihood of belief in such accounts.
National Identity, Religious Tolerance, and Group Conflict: Insights from a Survey Experiment in Pakistan (with Michael Kalin) (Conflict Management & Peace Science 37(1), 2020)
Can highlighting the national contributions of a religiously marginalized group increase tolerance toward that group, even when its presence in the national identity is disputed? Research shows that prejudice can be overcome by emphasizing a superordinate identity to which members of different groups belong. Our paper investigates whether the provision of information about a religious minority group’s contribution to the nation—and in the process, reiterating to citizens the broader identity to which they all belong—can increase tolerance toward members of that group. We test the effect of randomly exposing survey respondents to factual information about Pakistan's first Nobel Prize winner, a member of the widely ostracized Ahmadi minority sect, on support for pro-Ahmadi policies. We find that respondents overall are more willing to express tolerant views towards Ahmadis, but that this effect is attenuated (and in some cases, reversed) among respondents potentially alienated from the national identity.
Islam's Political Disadvantage: Corruption and Religiosity in Quetta, Pakistan (with Michael Kalin) (Politics & Religion 9(3) 2016)
Religion is often seen as important to voting behavior, particularly in the Islamic world, where personal piety may serve as an informational shortcut to voters otherwise unclear about candidate quality. But how do voters react when nominally pious candidates are alleged to be corrupt? Are pious candidates evaluated differently according to their sectarian affiliations? To investigate the impact of candidate piety and sectarian identity on voter choice, we conducted a survey experiment in Quetta, Balochistan, a region of Pakistan, which has experienced high levels of Sunni-Shia violence. Our results suggest that voters are significantly more punitive of corrupt behavior committed by candidates from sectarian out-groups than those belonging to their religious in-group. Further, we demonstrate that respondents react negatively to information about candidate religiosity, and uncover the existence of a “hypocrisy effect” whereby voters disproportionately punish corrupt candidates purporting to be pious compared to candidates who make no such claims. (Related Monkey Cage piece here)
Voters and Foreign Policy: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Pakistan (with Christopher Clary) Revise & Resubmit
How much are politicians constrained by the preferences of their voters? How much weight do voters places on foreign policy when deciding between electoral candidates? In traditional surveys in Pakistan, the vast majority of respondents identify India as an enemy and a serious threat to Pakistan. What these studies do not assess is whether these beliefs affect voting behavior. What if a political candidate emerged that had otherwise popular characteristics, but advocated policies of friendship toward India? Using a conjoint survey experiment conducted on a population-based sample of 1,990 respondents in Pakistan, we find that voters punish politicians who advocate a friendly policy toward India, but only modestly. Candidate attitudes toward India were the least meaningful characteristic for voter choice among five characteristics tested. While Pakistan is widely viewed as a garrison state where the military largely determines foreign policy, our results help distinguish whether the Pakistan military achieves its policy preferences because of institutional power alone, or because public support for policies of antagonism toward India dissuades civilian politicians from policies of peace. (Working paper available here)
Public Opinion and Crisis Behavior in a Nuclearized South Asia (with Christopher Clary and Sameer Lalwani) Under review
Does public opinion restrain or inflame interstate conflict? How can leaders manage public pressures during crises? Will publics rally behind leaders that choose to escalate, punish leaders that de-escalate, or listen to leaders who offer justifications for less dangerous paths? Our survey, conducted among 1,823 individuals in Pakistan’s Punjab province, offers sobering answers to these questions. Our results suggest clear public support for escalating rather than de-escalating a crisis, even one in which a leader has engaged in no prior effort to generate audience costs following crisis onset. We also find that respondents are significantly more likely to support escalatory decisions if they are made by a military, rather than civilian, leader, though we find weak-to-no evidence that military leaders receive more support in de-escalatory decisions than their civilian counterparts. Finally, while we demonstrate that Pakistani leaders can mitigate the costs of de-escalating by pointing to the dangers of conflict, they still risk a substantial decrease in public support when they opt to de-escalate rather than escalate a crisis. This paper advances a nascent research agenda to offer survey and experimental evidence of public opinions toward crisis behavior outside of the U.S. context and is the first attempt to do so in Pakistan, a weakly institutionalized democracy. (Working paper available here).
Does secular-party incumbency affect religious violence? Existing theory is ambiguous. On the one hand, religiously-motivated militants might target areas that vote secularists into office. On the other hand, secular party politicians, reliant on the support of violence-hit communities, may face powerful electoral incentives to quell attacks. Candidates bent on preventing bloodshed might also sort into such parties. To adjudicate these claims, we combine constituency-level election returns with events data on Islamist and sectarian violence in Pakistan (1988–2011). Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare districts where secular parties narrowly won or lost elections. We find that secularist rule causes a sizable reduction in local religious conflict. Additional analyses suggest that the result stems from electoral pressures to cater to core party supporters, and not from politician selection. The effect is concentrated in regions with denser police presence, highlighting the importance of state capacity for suppressing religious disorder. We discuss how the findings inform policy debates surrounding democracy promotion efforts in weakly institutionalized, conflict-ridden environments.
Who Do You Believe? Political Parties and Conspiracy Theories in Pakistan (Party Politics 26(2), 2020)
In authoritarian states, emerging democracies, and well-established democracies alike, alternative accounts that contest official state narratives flourish. Why do people believe such accounts even in the absence of supporting information? While this question has been explored in the United States, little research has assessed it in other contexts. Using a survey experiment carried out in Pakistan, this paper tests the impact of cues by political parties on belief in such conspiracy theories. The results provide evidence in favor of partisan cueing despite Pakistan’s weakly partisan environment: when alternative narratives are endorsed by parties viewed favorably by the respondent, they are more likely to be believed. Survey results also suggest that greater political knowledge—rather than inoculating individuals against conspiracy theories—was associated with a greater likelihood of belief in such accounts.
National Identity, Religious Tolerance, and Group Conflict: Insights from a Survey Experiment in Pakistan (with Michael Kalin) (Conflict Management & Peace Science 37(1), 2020)
Can highlighting the national contributions of a religiously marginalized group increase tolerance toward that group, even when its presence in the national identity is disputed? Research shows that prejudice can be overcome by emphasizing a superordinate identity to which members of different groups belong. Our paper investigates whether the provision of information about a religious minority group’s contribution to the nation—and in the process, reiterating to citizens the broader identity to which they all belong—can increase tolerance toward members of that group. We test the effect of randomly exposing survey respondents to factual information about Pakistan's first Nobel Prize winner, a member of the widely ostracized Ahmadi minority sect, on support for pro-Ahmadi policies. We find that respondents overall are more willing to express tolerant views towards Ahmadis, but that this effect is attenuated (and in some cases, reversed) among respondents potentially alienated from the national identity.
Islam's Political Disadvantage: Corruption and Religiosity in Quetta, Pakistan (with Michael Kalin) (Politics & Religion 9(3) 2016)
Religion is often seen as important to voting behavior, particularly in the Islamic world, where personal piety may serve as an informational shortcut to voters otherwise unclear about candidate quality. But how do voters react when nominally pious candidates are alleged to be corrupt? Are pious candidates evaluated differently according to their sectarian affiliations? To investigate the impact of candidate piety and sectarian identity on voter choice, we conducted a survey experiment in Quetta, Balochistan, a region of Pakistan, which has experienced high levels of Sunni-Shia violence. Our results suggest that voters are significantly more punitive of corrupt behavior committed by candidates from sectarian out-groups than those belonging to their religious in-group. Further, we demonstrate that respondents react negatively to information about candidate religiosity, and uncover the existence of a “hypocrisy effect” whereby voters disproportionately punish corrupt candidates purporting to be pious compared to candidates who make no such claims. (Related Monkey Cage piece here)
Voters and Foreign Policy: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment in Pakistan (with Christopher Clary) Revise & Resubmit
How much are politicians constrained by the preferences of their voters? How much weight do voters places on foreign policy when deciding between electoral candidates? In traditional surveys in Pakistan, the vast majority of respondents identify India as an enemy and a serious threat to Pakistan. What these studies do not assess is whether these beliefs affect voting behavior. What if a political candidate emerged that had otherwise popular characteristics, but advocated policies of friendship toward India? Using a conjoint survey experiment conducted on a population-based sample of 1,990 respondents in Pakistan, we find that voters punish politicians who advocate a friendly policy toward India, but only modestly. Candidate attitudes toward India were the least meaningful characteristic for voter choice among five characteristics tested. While Pakistan is widely viewed as a garrison state where the military largely determines foreign policy, our results help distinguish whether the Pakistan military achieves its policy preferences because of institutional power alone, or because public support for policies of antagonism toward India dissuades civilian politicians from policies of peace. (Working paper available here)
Public Opinion and Crisis Behavior in a Nuclearized South Asia (with Christopher Clary and Sameer Lalwani) Under review
Does public opinion restrain or inflame interstate conflict? How can leaders manage public pressures during crises? Will publics rally behind leaders that choose to escalate, punish leaders that de-escalate, or listen to leaders who offer justifications for less dangerous paths? Our survey, conducted among 1,823 individuals in Pakistan’s Punjab province, offers sobering answers to these questions. Our results suggest clear public support for escalating rather than de-escalating a crisis, even one in which a leader has engaged in no prior effort to generate audience costs following crisis onset. We also find that respondents are significantly more likely to support escalatory decisions if they are made by a military, rather than civilian, leader, though we find weak-to-no evidence that military leaders receive more support in de-escalatory decisions than their civilian counterparts. Finally, while we demonstrate that Pakistani leaders can mitigate the costs of de-escalating by pointing to the dangers of conflict, they still risk a substantial decrease in public support when they opt to de-escalate rather than escalate a crisis. This paper advances a nascent research agenda to offer survey and experimental evidence of public opinions toward crisis behavior outside of the U.S. context and is the first attempt to do so in Pakistan, a weakly institutionalized democracy. (Working paper available here).