1 – Terrorism in Immigrants’ Home Countries and Migration Policy Attitudes
Tobias Risse
University of St. Gallen
Abstract: We argue that terrorist attacks in migrants’ home countries have a polarizing effect on public opinion toward migration policy in Western democracies. On the one hand, previous research shows that terrorism increases public support for restrictive migration policies because it increases citizens’ perceived threat of “imported terrorism”. On the other hand, we argue that terrorist attacks in migrants’ home countries illustrate the danger they are exposed to. This increases empathy toward immigrants and support for a liberal migration policy. We propose that it depends on citizens’ prior migration attitudes whether the “empathy” mechanism outweighs the “fear” mechanism or vice versa. Thus, we expect terrorist attacks to increase support for restrictive policies toward Syrian refugees among those who are already skeptical about migration, but the opposite for those with liberal attitudes toward migration policy. We test our argument in a population-based survey experiment in Germany (N ≈ 3,000). We vary exposure to information about a large-scale terrorist attack in Syria and examine whether respondents, depending on their prior attitudes towards immigrants, react to this attack by updating their immigration policy preferences regarding Syrian refugees in opposite directions. This study contributes to the literature on how terrorism affects public opinion by highlighting how terrorist attacks abroad can polarize the electorate at home.
2 – Contact in the Workplace and Social Cohesion: Experimental Evidence from Uganda
Mariajose Silva-Vargas
J-PAL Europe
Abstract: Social cohesion is a driver of trust among members of the same community and consequently it is key to local economic development. A high influx of outsiders such as refugees might disrupt this cohesion, as the arrival of foreigners may change social relations. Therefore, how to construct social cohesion in refugee-host countries is both desirable and necessary for policy. We conduct a randomized control trial with refugee job seekers and native workers in locally owned and managed firms in Uganda. We measure social cohesion through a compound measure incorporating attitudes, implicit and explicit biases, and behaviors in real and hypothetical activities. Does inter-group contact in the workplace promote social cohesion between people from two different communities? Our sets of findings are two. First, explicit bias decreases for both groups, while implicit bias increases only for native workers. Second, both groups of workers improve their behaviors towards the opposite group, but in a slightly different way: while local workers want to have more refugee business partners, refugee workers want to be more employed by Ugandan firms. These findings underscore the role of workplace-based contact in developing social cohesion by reducing explicit biases and increasing positive behaviors among people from different communities.
3 – Building What Kind of Peace? Outcomes of a UN Peace-building Project in Darfur?
Paul Thissen
Abstract: Local-level peacebuilding interventions are increasingly common in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. These projects often claim to produce holistic peace by targeting a range of potential drivers of conflict, including components to support local conflict resolution institutions, service provision, and livelihood activities. However, both theoretical and empirical linkages between such interventions and actual conflict outcomes remain murky. This paper provides new evidence through an investigation of a United Nations Peacebuilding Fund project in East Darfur. We measure the project’s effects on a range of conflict and other outcomes via original household survey data including 3,512 individuals from 2,376 households in East Darfur. Our endline data was collected in early 2023, approximately six weeks before the start of the war between the Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. We employ a difference-in-difference style design, with control villages carefully selected to match the characteristics of intervention villages, complementing our quantitative work with data from in-depth interviews. Our results show that the project reduced the number of land conflicts, increased residents’ perceptions of the effectiveness of “peace committees,” and led to higher school enrolment and attendance. But it also had no effect on residents’ perceptions of their personal safety or the overall likelihood of a conflict affecting their village. The outbreak of war six weeks later suggests that village residents’ perceptions on the latter point were correct. These findings show the promise and limitations of such peacebuilding projects, as well as the sophisticated distinctions village residents draw between different types and sources of conflict.