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.
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