RT Article
T1 Where Terror Lies: Misrepresentation of Extremist Attitudes and Terrorist Attacks in the Sahel
JF Terrorism and political violence
VO 35
IS 4
SP 888
OP 907
A1 Finkel, Steven E.
A1 McCauley, John F.
A1 Neureiter, Michael
A1 Belasco, Christopher A.
A2 McCauley, John F.
A2 Neureiter, Michael
A2 Belasco, Christopher A.
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1844244040
AB Researchers have commonly treated misrepresentations in survey responses as an impediment to the accurate measurement of a variable or construct of substantive importance. This study builds on that approach and considers whether misreporting bias regarding support for violent extremism—both under- and over-reporting—may then have consequences for how terrorist violence itself unfolds. Using data from nearly 4,000 respondents in thirty-five communes in Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger collected just prior to a recent wave of terrorist attacks, we find that communes where individuals under-report their true support for violent extremism—as measured with unobtrusive experimental methods—have a greater probability of experiencing subsequent Islamist attacks, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics of the commune, country-level proximity effects, and other time-varying factors. The findings raise important considerations regarding the measurement of extremist support, and they suggest a new tool for identifying communities potentially susceptible to terrorist violence.
K1 Experiment
K1 Africa
K1 Terrorist attacks
K1 preference falsification
K1 violent extremism
DO 10.1080/09546553.2021.1987893