Terrorism, Trust, and Identity: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Nigeria

We study the effects of terrorism on political trust and national versus ethnic identification. Making use unexpected attacks by extremist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, which occurred during fieldwork a public opinion survey 2014, we show that even context weak state institutions frequent terrorist activities, terror significantly increase trust. also find reduced salience respondents' identity, instead increasing These findings run counter to arguments “rally around flag” following result from increased patriotism. The results have important implications for understanding contexts institutions, violence, politically salient divisions.