Faith or Doctrine? religion anD Support For political Violence in pakiStan

around the world, publics confronted with terrorism have debated whether islamic faith gives rise to a uniquely virulent strain of non-state violence targeted at civilians. these discussions almost always conceive of “islam” in general terms, not clearly defining what is meant by islamic religious faith. We engaged this debate by designing and conducting a large-scale public opinion survey in pakistan that measures multiple elements of religiosity, allowing us to separately consider the relationship between support for militant organizations and (1) religious practice; (2) support for political islam; and (3) “jihadism,” which we define as a particular textual interpretation common to islamist groups espousing violent political action. We also measured support for militant organizations using a novel form of an “endorsement experiment” that assessed attitudes toward specific groups without asking respondents about them directly. We find that neither religious practice nor support C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor in the school of Foreign service at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Usa. neil Malhotra is an associate professor in the Graduate school of business at stanford University, stanford, Ca, Usa. Jacob n. shapiro is an assistant professor in the Department of politics at princeton University, princeton, nJ, Usa. the authors thank their partners at socio-economic Development Consultants (seDCo) for their diligent work administering a complex survey in challenging circumstances. the editors, the anonymous reviewers, scott ashworth, rashad bokhari, ethan bueno de Mesquita, ali Cheema, James Fearon, amaney Jamal, asim Khwaja, roger Myerson, Farooq naseer, and Mosharraf Zaidi provided outstanding feedback. seminar participants at UC berkeley, CisaC, Georgetown, the harris school, harvard, penn, princeton, stanford, and the University of ottawa provided a number of insightful comments. Josh borkowski, Zach romanow, and peter schram provided excellent research assistance at different points. this research was supported, in part, by the U.s. Department of homeland security through the national Center for risk and economic analysis of terrorism events [grant #2007-st-061-000001 to C.C.F. and J.n.s.] and the U.s. Department of Defense’s Minerva research initiative through the air Force office of scientific research [grant #Fa9550-09-1-0314 to J.n.s.]. any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations in this document are those of the authors. *address correspondence to neil Malhotra, Graduate school of business, stanford University, 655 Knight Way, stanford, Ca 94305, Usa; e-mail: [email protected]. Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 76, no. 4, Winter 2012, pp. 688–720 © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] doi:10.1093/poq/nfs053 advance access publication 1 november 2012 at Prceton U niersity on N ovem er 8, 2012 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from for political islam is related to support for militant groups. however, pakistanis who believe jihad is both an external militarized struggle and that it can be waged by individuals are more supportive of violent groups than those who believe it is an internal struggle for righteousness. Discussions of terrorism in the United states, israel, China, Western europe, and south asia have repeatedly touched on whether islam is responsible for a uniquely virulent strain of non-state violence targeted at civilians. there is little agreement on this subject, even among those on the same end of the political spectrum. Writing in the Washington Post, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer (2006) asserted: “it is a simple and undeniable fact that the violent purveyors of monotheistic religion today are self-proclaimed warriors for islam who shout ‘God is great’ as they slit the throats of infidels—such as those of the flight crews on sept. 11, 2001—and are then celebrated as heroes and martyrs.” this view contrasts with messages from other conservatives who deny the existence of a link between islam and violence. in 2002, for instance, president George W. bush said: “all americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true face of islam. islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. it’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. it’s a faith based upon love, not hate” (White house archives). these popular discussions almost always conceive of “islam” in general terms, despite the enormous variation in interpretation of islamic belief and praxis throughout the Muslim world, as well as the large differences between juridical interpretations and popular beliefs. equally problematic, authors often fail to distinguish between belief and praxis on the one hand and political movements associated with islam (islamism) on the other (Ginges, hansen, and norenzayan 2009; Kaltenthaler et al. 2010; Fair and shepherd 2006). We address debates about links between various aspects of islamic belief and support for islamist militancy by designing and conducting a large-scale public opinion survey of pakistanis. the survey offers greater insight into the country that is perhaps the most important focus of efforts to combat islamist militancy. in addition, it provides unusually strong empirical leverage on more general theoretical questions about the link between religiosity and support for non-state violence, given the great deal of heterogeneity in interpretive traditions (masaliks)1 (ahmad and reifeld 2004; Metcalf 2004, 2009; Marsden 2006; rozehnal 2007), beliefs about the role of islam in the law, and the quality of religious education (nasr 2000). We introduce advances in measuring both our independent variables (elements of religious beliefs and practice) and the dependent variable (support for 1. serious cleavages divide the main interpretative traditions (masaliks) within islam (barelvi, shi’a, Deobandi, ahl-e-hadis, Jamaat-e-islami, etc.), each of which puts forward its own definition of sharia. Religion and Support for Political Violence 689 at Prceton U niersity on N ovem er 8, 2012 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from militant groups). With respect to the independent variables, we measure multiple aspects of religiosity, allowing us to separately consider the relationship between support for violent organizations and (1) religious practice; (2) support for political positions presented as islamic (“political islam”); and (3) “jihadism,” which we define as a particular textual interpretation common to islamist groups espousing jihad as violent political action. in doing so, we move beyond the simple question “Does fundamentalist islam produce terrorism?” With respect to the dependent variable, we assessed support for militant organizations through a novel form of an “endorsement experiment” that avoids asking respondents about the groups directly.2 Doing so is critical because discussion of these groups can be highly sensitive, and respondents are particularly likely to offer what they believe to be the socially desirable response or to simply not respond to certain questions.3 Furthermore, it is dangerous for survey teams operating in parts of balochistan and Khyber pakhtunkhwa (KpK) provinces (both of which have ongoing insurgencies) to ask directly about these issues. Using this approach, we find that neither religious practice nor support for political islam is related to support for militant organizations. a specific understanding of jihad, however, is. respondents who define jihad as an external militarized struggle that can be waged by individuals are up to 2.7 percentage points more supportive of militant groups than those who believe it is an internal struggle for righteousness. as shown below, this difference is both statistically and substantively meaningful. as Wiktorowicz (2005) and others have argued, it is the content, not the practice, of one’s religious beliefs that matters. the remainder of this paper is organized as follows. the first section briefly reviews the literature on religion and support for political violence and derives three testable hypotheses. the following two sections describe our data and the methods of analysis. the final two sections present the results and discuss their implications. Background and hypotheses in formulating testable hypotheses, we draw on policy analysis and scholarly discourse on islam, islamist politics, and islamist militancy (as well as 2. see bullock, imai, and shapiro (2011) for a justification of this approach in an ideal point framework and blair, imai, and lyall (2011) for an application in afghanistan. 3. in Worldpublicopinion.org polling in pakistan, for example, item non-response on questions about al-Qa’ida was 68 percent in February 2007, 47 percent in september 2008, and 13 percent in May 2009 (Worldpublicopinion.org 2007, 2008, 2009). surveys in pakistan that ask directly about affect toward militant groups obtain don’t know/no opinion rates in the range of 40 percent (terror Free tomorrow and new america Foundation 2008; pew research Center 2009). surveys that indirectly measure affect by asking whether groups “operating in pakistan are a problem” (international republican institute 2009) or pose “a threat to the vital interests of pakistan” (Worldpublicopinion 2009) still obtain item non-response rates as high as 31 percent. Fair, Malhotra, and Shapiro 690 at Prceton U niersity on N ovem er 8, 2012 http://poqrdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from on decades of in-country fieldwork) to explore potential connections between support for militant groups in pakistan and three aspects of islamic faith: religious practice, support for islamist politics, and views of jihad.4