Replication Data for: Relative Poverty, Perceived Violence, and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan

Challenging conventional wisdom, previous research in South Asia and the Middle East has shown that poverty and exposure to violence are negatively correlated with support for militant organizations. Existing studies provide evidence consistent with two potential mechanisms underlying these relationships: (1) the direct effects of poverty and violence on attitudes toward militant groups; and (2) the psychological effects of perceptions of poverty and violence on attitudes. Isolating the psychological mechanism is important for building theories of mass responses to political violence. We conducted a series of original, large-scale survey experiments in Pakistan (n = 16,279) in which we randomly manipulated perceptions of both poverty and violence before measuring support for militant organizations. We find evidence that psychological perceptions do in part explain why the poor seem to be less supportive of militant political groups.

挑战传统学界共识，此前在南亚与中东地区开展的研究表明，贫困与暴力暴露程度与对激进组织（militant organizations）的支持度呈负相关关系。现有研究为上述关联背后的两种潜在机制提供了佐证：其一为贫困与暴力对激进组织态度的直接影响；其二为个体对贫困与暴力的感知所产生的心理效应对其态度的作用。厘清这一心理机制，对于构建民众对政治暴力的群体反应理论具有重要价值。本研究在巴基斯坦开展了一系列原创性大规模调查实验（有效样本量n=16,279），在测量被试对激进组织的支持度之前，我们对其贫困与暴力感知进行了随机操控。研究结果显示，心理感知确实能够部分解释为何贫困群体对激进政治组织的支持度普遍更低。