Community Violence and Support for Violent Extremism: Evidence From the Sahel

Abstract

This article examines the effects of exposure to communal violence on support for violent religious extremism. We argue that in communities with high levels of reported violence, individuals lose political and social trust, develop exclusionary attitudes towards outgroups, and find appeal in nonconventional, black‐or‐white religious teachings, all of which can promote support for extremist violence. Using survey data from over 17,000 respondents in 84 communes surveyed between 2013 and 2017 in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad, we find strong support for these predictions. More violent communities express substantially greater support for violent extremism, with an increase in exclusionary outgroup biases and a turn to fundamentalist religious views being the primary mechanisms explaining—and amplifying—the effect. The findings run counter to arguments suggesting that exposure to violence leads to “war weariness” or generates community resilience to extremism via prosocial behaviors.

Intergroup violence among Jewish and Arab youths in Israel: Testing a multifactor ecological model.

“…Our findings are consistent with other studies linking exposure to trauma (Canetti-Nisim et al, 2009), community violence (Finkel et al, 2021), parent–child relationships (El-Amraoui & Ducol, 2019; Khoury-Kassabri et al, 2015), and individual factors with IV outcomes, including attitudes and willingness to engage in IV (Wolfowicz et al, 2020). Research has indicated that adolescents and young adults are at the highest risk of holding beliefs and attitudes supporting IV (for a review see Jahnke et al, 2021; Lösel et al, 2018; Wolfowicz et al, 2020).…”

“…For example, a large-scale survey consisting of over 17,000 participants from 84 communities, that was collected at three time points between 2013 and 2017 in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad indicated that belonging to more violent communities strongly predicts support for extremism. In this study, communities reporting the maximum level of violence showed a significant increase in the average levels of extremist support compared with communities reporting no violence (Finkel et al, 2021).…”

“…The social-developmental model of radicalization postulates that IV may stem from the interplay between societal, social, and personal factors (Beelmann, 2020). A growing body of research points to a link between different risk factors and IV at the personal, social, and societal levels (Canetti-Nisim et al, 2009; El-Amraoui & Ducol, 2019; Finkel et al, 2021; Wolfowicz et al, 2020). Drawing on the extant literature, the present study aimed to examine predictors for engaging in IV among Israeli Arab and Jewish youths.…”

Fighting Violent Extremism With Narrative Intervention: Evidence From a Field Experiment in West Africa

“…Justification of violence. Three items (similar to those used by Finkel et al, 2021) assessed justification of violence (e.g., "The use of violence is never justified," "It is sometimes necessary to use violence to defend just causes"). The responses were coded on 4-point scales (1 = violence is not justified, 4 = violence is justified) and aggregated into a composite score (α = .63).…”

Proximate Exposure to Conflict and the Spatiotemporal Correlates of Social Trust

“…Theories and research in political psychology predict that experiences of conflict are generally inimical to the development and maintenance of social trust (Cassar et al, 2011; Finkel et al, 2021; Kijewski & Freitag, 2018). For those whose lives are upended by terrorism, civil war, and other forms of violent conflict, it may be difficult to extend trust far beyond one's close friends and family, even within one's locale (Cassar et al, 2013).…”