Preventing Islamic Radicalization: Experimental Evidence on Anti-social Behavior
Context
Islamic radicalisation has become one of the main drivers of violent conflict in today’s world, with Islamist groups active across many Muslim-majority countries. Despite extensive international efforts, the question of how to effectively prevent such conflicts remains unresolved. Military responses to insurgent groups have increasingly lost global legitimacy, largely because they often fail to secure the support of local populations. As an alternative, development-based interventions aim to reduce violence by increasing the opportunity cost of being engaged in conflict. However, these strategies frequently overlook the religious motivations at the core of Islamist extremism, which may trump the material payoffs. An alternative approach that has gained attention is working directly with moderate Muslim communities to counter extremist interpretations of Islam and prevent radicalisation at its source.
Working Paper Introduction
The authors of the paper at hand test this approach in the capital of the Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. The studied region is inhabited by a majority-Muslim population and suffers from high poverty and mortality rates, even for Mozambican standards. In 2010, there was a discovery of significant natural gas resources with the potential to turn the country into a major exporter on a global scale.
In this context, several deadly attacks have been reported in the province starting from the end of 2017. The attacks linked with radicalised Muslims first targeted state institutions but quickly expanded onto civilians and foreign natural gas operations. In light of this and given the long-standing role of Muslim authorities as mediators in Mozambique’s political conflicts, religious sensitization led by these authorities against radical interpretations of Islam appears particularly well-suited as a tool for conflict prevention.
Methodology
The study employs a randomised controlled field experiment in order to study two conflict prevention strategies. The main sample consists of 241 young Muslim men recruited from local mosques and randomly assigned to one of three groups: a religious sensitisation treatment, an economic training treatment, or a control group.
- 1st intervention – religious sensitization campaign led by religious figures
→ Informed attendants that the typical claims made by Islamic fundamentalists lack theological foundations
→ Main motivation: changing the religious beliefs of radicalized subjects in the direction of moderate Islam
- 2nd intervention – Training module on entrepreneurship and employment in the local labour market
→ It made specific reference to the new jobs expected in the region following the discovery of natural gas resources
→ Main motivation: improving the economic prospects of subjects (increasing their opportunity cost of engaging in conflict)
To measure behavioural outcomes, participants took part in a Joy-of-Destruction laboratory game, which assesses anti-social behaviour and is standard in experimental literature. Participants played the game with pairs of other players and had to make a unique decision – whether to destroy the endowment of the other player at a cost. Each participant from the main Muslim sample played the game four times: once against a local Muslim, a local Christian, a public official, and a foreigner – being fully aware of the opponent type. After each round, players also guessed whether their opponent had chosen to destroy their payoff.
Results
The authors’ findings are promising. The effects of the religious and economic treatments are significantly different from each other. First, religious sensitization has been found to reduce anti-social behaviour in the Joy-of-Destruction game. Namely, there is an 8-percentage point lower probability that subjects in the main Muslim sample destroy the payoffs of their opponents. This suggests that targeting religious beliefs directly can be an effective tool in reducing hostile behaviour in the contexts of ideological conflict. Conversely, changing economic prospects of individuals shows no effect on changing anti-social behaviour. In fact, authors show that the economic training module increases the belief that others will behave in an anti-social manner in the game. Authors base their interpretation of this result on the discovery of natural gas resources in the region. Consistent with the findings of the literature on the resource curse, such discovery leads to rent-seeking and a deterioration of political behaviour. Finally, the paper provides suggestive evidence that the anti-social behaviour of individuals from the main Muslim sample targets more public officials and foreigners. This result is consistent with the nature of the violent attacks that have taken place in the province.
Implications
The study provides suggestive evidence that religious sensitization led by Islamic authorities can contribute to conflict prevention by reducing both anti-social behavior and support for extremism. It adds to the growing body of research showing that broad-based information campaigns play an important role in preventing violence. This is especially relevant for policy-makers, whose default response to radical violence is pure repression. While force remains necessary for security, the findings suggest that community-based, belief-oriented interventions are a crucial complement to purely military approaches.
Written by Robert Gorski MSc in Public Policy and International Development by Nova SBE and Member of the NOVAFRICA Student Group.
