Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan

Publication Year
2013
Publisher
American Political Science Review
Abstract

How are civilian attitudes toward combatants affected by wartime victimization? Are these effects conditional on which combatant inflicted the harm? We investigate the determinants of wartime civilian attitudes towards combatants using a survey experiment across 204 villages in five Pashtun-dominated provinces of Afghanistan—the heart of the Taliban insurgency. We use endorsement experiments to indirectly elicit truthful answers to sensitive questions about support for different combatants. We demonstrate that civilian attitudes are asymmetric in nature. Harm inflicted by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is met with reduced support for ISAF and increased support for the Taliban, but Taliban-inflicted harm does not translate into greater ISAF support. We combine a multistage sampling design with hierarchical modeling to estimate ISAF and Taliban support at the individual, village, and district levels, permitting a more fine-grained analysis of wartime attitudes than previously possible.

Additional Authors
Jason Lyall and Kosuke Imai
Citation

LYALL, J., BLAIR, G., & IMAI, K. (2013). Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan. American Political Science Review, 107(4), 679-705. doi:10.1017/S0003055413000403

Publication Topic
Violence
Country
Publication Type
Academic Journal Article