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Societies divided along ethnic or religious lines suffer from persistent conflict and underprovision of public goods. Scholarly understanding of how to strengthen intergroup cooperation remains limited. In this study, we set out to test the effectiveness of two interventions on intergroup cooperation: cross-group expert appeal and participation in a cross-group discussion. The laboratory-in-the-field experiment is set in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, and involves interactions between 180 Shia and 180 Sunni Muslim participants. We find that the expert appeal increases intersectarian cooperation in settings that do not entail reciprocal exchange. On average, cross-sectarian discussions do not improve cooperation, but those discussions in which participants delve deeply into the conflict's causes and possible remedies are associated with greater cooperation. Neither intervention diminishes the effectiveness of sectarian clientelistic appeals. The policy implication of our study is that intergroup cooperation can be strengthened even in regions as bitterly divided as the Middle East.

We examine (1) how trust in foreigners and trust in political institutions affect attitudes toward immigration and (2) the moderating effect of economic development on those impacts, analyzing data from the fifth wave of the World Values Survey. We find that natives who trust foreigners are more tolerant toward immigration and that economic development positively moderates the impact of trust in foreigners on the attitudes. Meanwhile, we find only mixed evidence for the impact of trust in political institutions and the moderating role of economic development in the impact. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings.

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