Democratic Values and Support for Militant Politics

Abstract

A long-standing research tradition on political culture argues that greater support for core liberal values leads to a rejection of destructive political activities and reduced support for violent politics. In this vein, many contemporary analysts of security policy contend that a lack of democratic values in the Middle East promotes the development of violent political organizations. Unfortunately, there have been few direct tests of the hypothesis that an individual’s rejection of democratic values correlates with support for militant groups. We conduct such a test in Pakistan using an original 6,000-person provincially representative survey. We find that strong supporters of democratic values are actually more supportive of militant groups and that this relationship is strongest among those who believe that Muslim rights and sovereignty are being violated in Kashmir. This is consistent with the context of Pakistani politics, where many militant groups use the principle of azadi (i.e., freedom and self-determination) to justify their actions. These results challenge the conventional wisdom about the roots of militancy and underscore the importance of understanding how local context mediates the influence of civic culture on political stability and violence.

Keywords

terrorism militancy democratic values endorsement experiment

A long-standing research tradition on political culture suggests that greater mass support for core liberal democratic values leads to a rejection of destructive political activities (Kirwin and Cho 2009) and produces a wide range of benefits including resistance to autocracy (Gibson 1997), durability of democratic institutions (Dalton 1994; Persson and Tabbellini 2009), better governance (Almond and Verba 1963), and economic growth (Huntington 1984). Drawing on this tradition, a major tenet of US foreign policy under the Bush administration—one which still influences Obama administration policy—is that “exporting democracy” to regions of the world where it is deficient will reduce support for violent political activity such as terrorism (see, e.g., National Security Council of the United States 2006; Hamid and Brooke 2010). Part of the logic underlying this proposition is the implicit assumption that support for militant associations is linked to nondemocratic attitudes, an especially relevant association in the Islamist context where groups often espouse antidemocratic ideologies. What has been missing from this discussion is individual-level data empirically assessing whether support for democratic values is actually correlated with the rejection of violent political organizations.

A thoughtful reflection on the claims made by many militant groups over the last fifty years, and on the nature of competition between governments and militant groups in some regions, suggests that theories about the palliative role of democratic values need to take political context into careful consideration. Beginning at least with the American Revolution, there has been no shortage of political movements that have rallied their followers to kill, and to risk death, in the name of freedom, democratic representation, and other liberal democratic values. In present-day South Asia and the Middle East, many militant groups claim to be defending freedom, fighting for self-representation, and mobilizing against what they perceive to be corrupt governments. Moreover, the populations from which these varied militant groups draw support appear to believe these claims. Thus, support for liberal democratic values may actually be positively correlated with support for militancy, particularly among individuals who believe key factual claims these groups make about the political environment.

We collect and analyze survey data from Pakistan to test the hypothesis that support for core democratic values is associated with a rejection of violent political organizations.¹ We focus on one type of violent organization, Islamist militant groups, because in Pakistan many of these groups justify their actions with appeals to narratives of freedom and self-determination. Studying support for such groups is therefore particularly useful for testing whether the correlation between democratic values and support depends on beliefs about what groups are trying to achieve.² Our original 6,000-person survey is representative of adults in each of Pakistan’s four main provinces: Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkwa (KPK), and Balochistan. It is the first to (1) measure affect toward a range of specific militant organizations within one country, (2) measure beliefs about the importance of core democratic values, and (3) be representative of both rural and urban regions of each of the four normally administered provinces of Pakistan (Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and KPK).³

To measure support for militant groups we employ an “endorsement experiment,” which has several advantages in this unique survey environment. First and foremost, this technique minimizes risk to both enumerators and respondents alike. This concern is paramount. Important as it is to understand the empirical underpinnings of popular support for militancy, researchers have a duty under human subjects protocols to minimize risk to all research participants. Employing survey techniques that are empirically robust while minimizing risk will become even more important for future research in Pakistan, as the country’s insecurity is unlikely to abate any time soon. Our measurement technique may therefore be of interest to other scholars seeking to conduct sensitive research in dangerous areas.

Second, this approach also mitigates item nonresponse and social desirability bias, which plague surveys on sensitive topics.⁴ While our endorsement experiment overcomes these safety and empirical issues, it does so at the cost of precision about the variable being measured.⁵ Given the prevailing conditions in Pakistan, we believe this is a trade-off that must be made in order to study specific militant organizations, particularly in rural and economically underdeveloped areas.

As described the following, we measure differences in support for policies unrelated to Islamist militancy between two randomly assigned groups. One group was told only about the policy; the other was told that a militant organization supports the policy. This technique reveals how attitudes toward policies change as a consequence of their association with an Islamist militant group, and is thus an indirect measure of support for the group. In contrast to a direct measure, the endorsement experiment mitigates nonresponse and social desirability concerns since respondents are reacting to the policy and not to the group itself. By asking respondents about multiple policy issues and randomizing the pairing of issue with militant groups, we can identify both average attitudes toward Islamist militancy and support for specific organizations in ways that are unlikely to be biased by the details of any specific policy.

Using this approach, we find that support for a set of liberal democratic values—property rights, free speech, independent courts, the ability of citizens to elect representatives, a separation of civilian and military power, and freedom of assembly—is positively related to support for militancy, as measured through the endorsement effect. This result at first seems unexpected, but makes sense once one takes the political context into account. One of the most powerful tropes employed by militant groups in Pakistan is the notion of azadi, which has a rich and important history in South Asia. The word, found in Urdu and several other South Asian languages, came to prominence during the anticolonial movement against the British Raj and is variously translated as “freedom,” “independence,” or “self-determination.” Azadi also implies decolonization and freedom from tyranny and occupation. Militant Kashmiri groups argue that India oppresses Kashmiris. Similarly, the Taliban contends that the foreign occupiers and their collaborators persecute the Afghans. These groups also stress the Kashimiris’ and Afghans’ lack of access to democratic institutions for redress of grievances and use of extrajudicial violence by the occupiers. Thus, while azadi is not isomorphic with democracy, it taps a set of values that are closely linked to liberal democratic concepts. This rhetoric of azadi likely explains why support for such values is associated with a 4 percentage point increase in the endorsement effect, nearly as large as the effect on support for social policies of moving from the bottom to the top income group.

Two patterns in the data confirm this interpretation. First, the militant groups which appeal most strongly to those who support core liberal democratic values are those most associated with the azadi narrative (the Afghan Taliban and Kashmiri groups). The correlation between democratic values and the endorsement effect is approximately 60 percent larger for these two groups than for other organizations, though the difference is not statistically significant at conventional levels. More strikingly, the relationship between the endorsement effect and democratic values is more than three times as large (12 percentage points) among respondents who believe that Muslim rights and sovereignty are being violated in Kashmir, a statistically significant and substantively large difference. Among respondents who do not share these beliefs about the nature of the conflict in these regions, there is a statistically insignificant relationship between support for democratic principles and support for militant organizations. Supporters of democratic values, in other words, are more likely to favor militant groups if they believe that those militants are fighting against foreign forces denying Muslims their right to azadi.

The remainder of the article is organized as follows. The first section provides a brief background on militant groups in Pakistan, with a focus on the political claims they make. Next, we provide a theoretical basis for our hypotheses, centered on the concept of azadi. We then describe our survey in detail, including how we measure the core dependent and independent variables. Subsequently, we present our methods of analysis. We conclude by discussing the results, the challenges of survey research on this issue, and implications for the study of political violence as well as for foreign policy.

Islamist Militancy in Pakistan

The contemporary landscape of Islamist militancy in Pakistan is populated by an array of Islamist militant groups, sometimes called tanzeems. (This article does not deal with groups that principally mobilize violence around ethnonationalist concerns.) The members of one cluster of militant groups, the “sectarian tanzeems” such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba-e-Pakistan (SSP), have long targeted Shia and Ahmediyas, and, in recent years, members of Pakistan’s varied Sufi sects (often referred to as Barelvis). A second cluster of groups are those that call themselves “Kashmiri tanzeems” because they claim to operate on behalf of Kashmiris and other Muslims living on Indian territory. These groups aim to “liberate” India’s Muslims from the supposed oppression of the “Hindu”-dominated Indian state.

The Afghan Taliban are based in Pakistan and claim to be resisting Western occupation of their country in an effort to restore their own government, which was toppled in December 2001. Pakistan has also played host to several al-Qa’ida activists, including Osama Bin Laden, who was killed there in May 2011 (Fair 2011a; N. Hussain 2011; Khan 2011; Haqqani 2005). Finally, after the commencement of Pakistan’s selective participation in the US war on terror in 2001, some of Pakistan’s erstwhile Islamist militant proxies reorganized and began to attack the state (Fair 2011a). By late 2007, several of these groups had coalesced under the banner of the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.

Among the five clusters of Islamist militant groups described above (sectarian tanzeems, Kashmiri tanzeems, the Afghan Taliban, al-Qa’ida, and the Pakistani Taliban), narratives of azadi are most prominent among the Kashmiri tanzeems and the Afghan Taliban.⁶ The Pakistani state has long promoted the goals of both of these groups in its educational institutions, military indoctrination, training procedures, and print and electronic media (Fair 2011a). Pakistani civilian and military leadership alike refer to “Kashmir Tanzeems” as “freedom fighters,” who are struggling to liberate India’s Muslim population, both in Kashmir and beyond (Fair 2011a; Jalal 2008; Haqqani 2005; R. Hussain 2005). These groups have appealed to azadi since their inception in the late 1980s.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (also known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa) is one of the most prominent Kashmiri tanzeems, with deep ties to the Pakistani state. In the group’s manifesto, Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain (Why Are We Waging Jihad), the author mobilizes activists to undertake jihad by asking,

Is there any place in this world today where Muslims are not suffering? Are there not cries for help from the downtrodden Muslim men, women and children in Indian Kashmir, the Philippines, Chechnya, China, Russia, Bosnia among other places, all pleading to be saved from their torments? (Jamaat-ud-Dawa 2004, 13. Authors’ translation)

Elsewhere in the treatise the author justifies jihad in India by recounting the various abuses perpetrated by the Indian government in Kashmir and the general abuse of Muslims throughout India.

The Afghan Taliban focuses on liberating Afghanistan from Western occupation and from the current Afghan leadership, which enables this occupation. The Taliban’s central message is that the coalition aims “to occupy Afghanistan and destroy Islam.” The message of liberating Afghans from occupation is plausible because many Afghans have never heard of the September 11 attacks that precipitated the war and simply do not understand why Americans and others are trying to run their country (Lujan 2012). In 2009, the Taliban issued a statement on the eighth anniversary of the government’s fall in which they depicted themselves as “nationalist actors upholding the undeniable Islamic right to self-defense . . . their objectives [were] defined as ‘independence, Islamic social justice, human dignity and national identity’” (cited in Brahimi 2010, 5).

Equally important, pro-Afghan Taliban commentators in Pakistan legitimize the efforts of the Afghan Taliban in terms of azadi for Afghans. Such commentators argue that the “Afghan Taliban have grassroots support in the south and southeast, and the movement is a reaction to the lack of Pashtun representation . . . The Afghan Taliban are a genuine resistance force fighting an ideological war against foreign invasion” (Daiyar 2012). While Pakistani commentators have asserted the legitimacy of the Taliban government since the mid-1990s, the Afghan Taliban’s claims to be liberating Afghanistan from occupation originated with the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 but obviously intensified after 2005, when they launched a full-fledged insurgency to oust the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from Afghanistan.

This overview is necessarily simplistic, as these groups differ in their sectarian commitments, relationship with Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, operational modes, and depth of ties to Pakistan’s various religious and mainstream parties (inter alia Fair 2011a; Haqqani 2005; R. Hussain 2005). For a more detailed discussion, see Online Appendix A.

Theoretical Overview: The Concept of Azadi

Understanding the concept of azadi, for which many Islamist militant groups claim to be fighting, is required to make sense of the politics of militancy in Pakistan. Azadi literally means freedom in Urdu (as well as in Hindi, Dari, Persian, Pashto, and other related languages), with explicit reference to the political self-determination of a specific group of people. However, it also refers to the combination of freedom and self-determination at the level of a polity (e.g., and especially, Afghans or Kashmiris). As noted earlier, this concept is redolent of, but not isomorphic with, what we might term democracy. Azadi fundamentally conveys a sense that politics should be organized by and answerable to the groups seeking freedom rather than the government or military forces (foreign or domestic), which govern these populations against their will.

During the period of British colonization, azadi referred to freedom from the oppressive and exploitative British occupation and an assertion of Indian self-rule (where Indian refers to the indigenous population within the territorial dominion of the British Raj). Since partition of the subcontinent in 1947, the concept of azadi has been used by a variety of separatist groups to assert subnational autonomy and/or freedom in both postpartition India and Pakistan, and thus, azadi may also be used to legitimize secession (as was the case in East Pakistan prior to the 1971 civil war which resulted in the emergence of an independent Bangladesh).

The Pakistani state has long used Islamist militants as proxies to advance Pakistan’s interests by conducting attacks in Indian Kashmir, India at large, and Afghanistan (Fair 2011a). The Kashmiri organizations and the Afghan Taliban employ the concept of azadi to mobilize support for their actions, in part by assembling long lists of oppressive activities by the Indian or Afghan states in an effort to undermine any claims that these governments are legitimate. Legitimate governments, after all, do not deny citizens access to rule of law and basic civil liberties. They then demand that the target regimes (India or NATO-occupied Afghanistan) “decolonize” and grant their subjects the right of self-determination.

With respect to Kashmir, the narrative of attaining azadi or freedom for Muslim Kashmiris living under Indian (e.g., Hindu) oppression is crucially important in Pakistani domestic politics and society.⁷ Pakistan-administered Kashmir is called “Azad Kashmir”⁸ (Free Kashmir) while that under India’s administration is called “Maqbuza Kashmir” (Occupied Kashmir), and reports of the Indian state’s abuses and other missteps in Kashmir appear daily in the Pakistani media. Pakistan’s leaders, civilian and military alike, refer to the militant groups which claim to fight on behalf of Kashmir’s freedom as “freedom fighters” rather than as terrorists. Each year on February 5, Pakistan celebrates Kashmir Day with demonstrations in Azad Kashmir and elsewhere to show solidarity with Kashmiris living under Indian “occupation.” Pakistanis driving to Azad Kashmir do so on the “Srinagar Highway,” named for the capital of Maqbuza Kashmir. Pakistan’s cities are strewn with public commemorations and memorials of Kashmir, and much of Pakistan’s leadership (e.g., the Sharifs of the Pakistan Muslim League) are Kashmiri. Many products, such as cooking oil, are sold and marketed under the brand name “Kashmir.”

The notion of azadi also applies to Afghanistan in Pakistani discourse, albeit much less intensely. In the 1980s, the mujahideen were mobilized to free the Afghans from the secular Soviet occupation. Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan continued to justify its involvement and that of its so-called mujahideen proxies in Afghanistan by arguing that it was “liberating” Afghanistan from vicious warlords enjoying the support of India, Russia, and Iran, among others (Rashid 2000). After the US invasion in 2001, Pakistanis again view Afghanistan as occupied and the Afghan Taliban as a legitimate group fighting jihad for the azadi of Afghans. This is not just a Pakistani view. The Afghan Taliban evoke the concept of azadi when they claim that they are fighting not against the West, but rather for the independence of Afghanistan.⁹ In turn, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) seeks to undermine the Taliban’s use of liberation as a mobilizing ideology; the Dari title of one of its flagship information operations products is Sada-e-Azadi (D’azadi-e-Ghag in Pashto, Voice of Freedom in English; ISAF, n.d.). This political context means that concepts of democracy, self-determination, and violent uprising are intertwined in Pakistani culture.

In summary, the term azadi combines both behavioral conceptions of democracy (i.e., freedom from repression) and the institutional characteristics (i.e., procedures for collective choice, self-rule, and justice), suggesting three testable hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Pakistanis who are more supportive of liberal democratic principles consistent with azadi should be more supportive of militant groups operating from Pakistan.

Hypothesis 2: The relationship posited by Hypothesis 1 should be stronger for groups that employ and are identified with azadi narratives.

Hypothesis 3: The relationship posited by Hypothesis 1 should be strongest among Pakistanis whose beliefs about what the groups are doing maps well onto the azadi narrative.

Testing these posited relationships is particularly important in this context because Pakistanis remain committed to democratic principles despite their general skepticism about the quality of their democratically elected leaders. As the contributors to Norris (1999) pointed out, “critical citizens” of many countries are skeptical about the core institutions of representative democracy in their country, yet still aspire to achieve democratic ideals. Indeed, Clearly and Stokes (2006) contend that a skeptical polity which does not necessarily trust government may be more participatory and committed to political liberalism. Therefore, democratically minded Pakistanis unsatisfied with the performance of government may be particularly attracted to extrastate solutions.

The Survey

None of the extant data sets measuring Pakistani public opinion on militancy (including surveys conducted by Gallup, Zogby, The Pew Foundation, World Public Opinion.org [WPO], the International Republican Institute [IRI], and Terror Free Tomorrow) were suitable for analyzing the relationship between democratic values and support for militancy. Most of these surveys assess support for terrorist tactics generally, which makes it hard to tie them directly to support for specific organizations. Surveys that did ask respondents directly about their support for these groups had high don’t know/no opinion response rates in the range of 40 percent (Terror Free Tomorrow and the New America Foundation 2008; Pew Research Center 2009) or higher.¹⁰ The surveys which indirectly measured attitudes by asking whether groups “operating in Pakistan are a problem” (IRI 2009) or pose “a threat to the vital interests of Pakistan” (WPO 2009a) are hard to interpret and still suffer high item nonresponse rates. Finally, the samples used in prior surveys are concentrated in urban areas. These sampling patterns are problematic as public opinion about militancy as well as the prevalence of some militant groups varies across urban and rural regions (Fair 2009).

We therefore designed and fielded a 6,000-person national survey with four goals. First, we wanted to survey a representative sample of the Pakistani population, including rural and urban areas, in each of Pakistan’s four main provinces. Second, we sought to measure attitudes toward specific militant organizations in a way that minimized the item nonresponse to sensitive questions that plagued previous surveys in Pakistan. Third, we aimed to mitigate social desirability bias. As is well known, respondents in many survey settings answer to please the enumerator or in order to appear to be high status (Krosnick 1999; Marlowe and Crowne 1964, 109). These tendencies may be exacerbated when questions touch on sensitive issues, and fear and the desire to avoid embarrassment come into play. In Pakistan, respondents can often determine significant information about the class, ethnicity, and sectarian orientation of an enumerator based on his or her name and accent. This makes social desirability concerns even greater for surveys studying the politics of militancy in Pakistan, as respondents may be wary of signaling promilitant views to high-status enumerators. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we sought to achieve all of these analytical goals while mitigating risk to all persons involved in the survey. Enumerators are at particular risk of being threatened by militants, security officials, and even respondents when asking about support for specific organizations. These safety concerns are particularly acute in rural areas.

Working with our Pakistani partners, Socioeconomic Development Consultants, and using the Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics sample frame, we drew a stratified random sample of 6,000 adult Pakistani men and women from the four “normal” provinces of the country (those governed by Pakistan’s 1973 constitution): Punjab, Sindh, KPK, and Balochistan. The respondents were randomly selected within 500 primary sampling units (PSUs), 332 in rural areas and 168 in urban ones (following the rural/urban breakdown in the Pakistan census). We oversampled in the less-populous provinces (Balochistan and KPK). We calculated poststratification survey weights based on population figures from the most recent available census (performed in 1998). Following procedures outlined by Lee and Forthofer (2006), all analyses reported in the following were weighted and clustered to account for survey design effects.

The face-to-face questionnaire was fielded by six mixed-gender teams between April 21, 2009, and May 25, 2009. This was a period of some tension in Pakistan, as the Pakistani military began a major operation against militants in Swat and Malakand districts on April 26. Despite those tensions, the AAPOR RR1 response rate was 71.8 percent, which rivals the high response rates achieved by major academic surveys such as the American National Election Studies. Full question wordings for all variables used in the analysis are provided in Online Appendix C. Online Appendix D reports the sample demographics and balance checks for the full sample and by province. All variables described below were coded to lie between 0 and 1, so that we can easily interpret a regression coefficient as representing a 100β percentage point change in the dependent variable associated with moving from the lowest possible value to the highest possible value of the independent variable.

Measuring Support for Militant Organizations and Democratic Values

We measured support for four groups—the Kashmiri tanzeems, the Afghan Taliban, al-Qa’ida, and the sectarian tanzeems—using an endorsement experiment, an indirect method of eliciting views on sensitive political organizations.¹¹ In an endorsement experiment, respondents are asked how much they support policies, measured on a 5-point scale, which are relatively well known but about which they do not have strong feelings (as we learned during pretesting). Half the respondents are randomly assigned to a treatment condition in which they are told that one of the four groups mentioned in the first section supports the policy in question, with the pairing of group to policy randomized within respondent. The difference in means between treatment and control groups then provides a measure of affect toward the groups, since the only difference between the treatment and control conditions is the group endorsement.¹²

To construct our dependent variable, we average support within respondent across the four policies and leverage random assignment into treatment (endorsement) and control to measure differential support for militancy. The main dependent variable therefore is a 20-point scale; each respondent was asked about four policies measured on a 5-point scale (4 × 5 = 20). As with all other variables, we recoded the policy support scale to lie between 0 (no support for all four policies) to 1 (a great deal of support for all four policies). The policy scale had a mean value of .79 (SD = .15) in the control group. The distributions for each of the four policies in by province are presented in Figure 1. The distributions of the 20-point scale by province are presented in Figure 2. As described in the following, we also examined support for each of the groups individually.

Figure 1.

Distribution of support for policies.

Figure 2.

Distribution of policy scale.

We measure support for democratic values by assessing support for six core institutional features of liberal democratic societies using questions which draw on the widely used Freedom in the World (FIW) survey (Freedom House 2011). We focus on the specific institutional characteristics of democracy (i.e., independent courts) that are most prominent in Pakistani discourse, as opposed to asking about views on behavioral outcomes (i.e., perceptions about the legitimate actions of the state), to minimize any between-subject variation due to respondent-specific beliefs about the political situation.¹³ Of course, as Munck and Verkuilen’s (2002) analysis of the challenges to measuring democracy at the country level demonstrates, there is no broadly agreed upon way to measure “democratic values” or “freedom.” Indeed, Collier and Levitsky (1997) famously report finding 500 examples of “democracy with adjectives.” Our measurement approach brackets these complexities by focusing on institutional features that are, for the most part, uncontested parts of the institutional package of democracy as formulated by organizations such as Freedom House. Nonetheless, a limitation of our measurement approach is that we do not conceptualize democracy in explicitly behavioral terms.

Free speech. “How important is it that individuals be able to express their political views, even though other people may not agree with them?” (Freedom of expression and beliefs module).

Independent courts. “How important is it for you to live in a country where the decisions of the courts are independent from influence by political and military authorities?” (Rule of law module).

Freedom of assembly. “How important is it that individuals be able to meet with others to work on political issues?” (Associational and organizational rights module).

Being governed by elected representatives. “How important is it for you to live in a country that is governed by representatives elected by the people?” (Functioning of government module).

Property rights. “How important is it that individual property rights be secure? This means the state cannot take away property without proper court proceedings.” (Personal autonomy and individual rights module).

Having civilian control over the military. “The 1973 Constitution of Pakistan says civilians should control the military. This means the military cannot take action without orders from civilian leaders. In your opinion, how much control should civilians have over the military?” (Functioning of government module).

The first 5 items were measured on a 5-point scale (extremely important, very important, moderately important, slightly important, and not important at all). The civilian control item was measured on a different 5-point scale (complete control, a lot of control, a moderate amount of control, a little control, no control at all).

As shown in Online Appendix D, about half of respondents selected the most-democratic response (extremely important or complete control) and few selected the very bottom categories. Accordingly, we divide respondents into two groups—those selecting the highest response category and all others. We also estimated specifications in which responses were treated as continuous measures and obtained similar results. We constructed a scale in which we average the 6 items together to reduce measurement error. Cronbach’s α for 6 items was .75, suggesting a high level of scale reliability. The democratic support index had a mean of .48 (SD = .33).

Table 1.

Support for Democratic Values Predicts Support for Militant Groups.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
β₁: Group Cue	−0.026***	−0.025***	−0.026***	−0.025***	−0.045*
β₁: Group Cue	(0.007)	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.006)	(0.026)
β₂: Support for democratic values	0.121***	0.094***	0.094***	0.091***	0.089***
β₂: Support for democratic values	(0.016)	(0.014)	(0.015)	(0.014)	(0.014)
β₃: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values	0.042***	0.038***	0.040***	0.036***	0.039***
β₃: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values	(0.012)	(0.011)	(0.011)	(0.011)	(0.013)
Constant	0.748***	0.845***	0.845***	0.805***	0.814***
Constant	(0.011)	(0.022)	(0.022)	(0.029)	(0.031)
R ²	0.142	0.244	0.241	0.254	0.260
N	5,243	5,243	5,092	5,243	5,243
Region fixed effects	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Demographic controls	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
Income listwise deleted	—	N	Y	N	N
Attitudinal controls	N	N	N	Y	Y
Group cue—Demographics interactions	N	N	N	N	Y
Group cue—Attitudinal interaction	N	N	N	N	Y

Note: Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions predicting support for policies. Data weighted and adjusted for sampling design. Demographic controls include gender, marital status, age, access to Internet, possession of cellular phone, ability to read, ability to write, ability to perform arithmetic, formal education level, income, and religion sect. Attitudinal controls include two measures of attitudes toward United States, views of Shari’a law, and religiosity.

***p < .01. **p < .05. *p < .10 (two tailed).

Our survey measures obviously do not capture the nuances of democratic values as discussed by democratic theorists. Indeed, it is unlikely that survey respondents in a developing nation would conceptualize democratic values in such a manner. Nonetheless, the questions ask about institutional features common to liberal democracies as discussed in scholarship on the topic. For instance, our measures do not capture Dahl’s (1989, 2006) conception of citizen involvement and enlightened understanding, but come closer to what he terms “polyarchy.” Similarly, our questions do not deal with hierarchical structures discussed in Held’s (1995) theory of cosmopolitan democracy, but do closely tap his criteria for traditional liberal democracy (Held 2006). Finally, we do not explicitly measure Shapiro’s (1999) concept of democracy as a conditioning good, a bottom-up theory of a polity collectively democratizing over shared pursuits and values.

To test Hypothesis 3, we measure respondents’ beliefs about the status of Muslims living in Kashmir. We constructed a three-point scale measuring perceptions that Muslims are being oppressed in Kashmir based on two binary indicators.¹⁴ The first question asked respondents, “How well does India protect the rights of its Muslim citizens in Kashmir?” (response options: extremely well, somewhat well, neither well nor poorly, somewhat poorly, and extremely poorly).¹⁵ Respondents answering “extremely well” and “somewhat well” were coded as 0, and all others were coded as 1. The second question asked respondents “Thinking about the political preferences of Muslims in occupied Kashmir, please tell us which statement you agree with the most” (response options: In occupied Kashmir, the majority of Muslims want to be part of India, In occupied Kashmir, the majority of Muslims want an independent state, In occupied Kashmir, the majority of Muslims want to be part of Pakistan). Respondents answering that Muslims want to be part of India were coded as 0, and all others were coded as 1.

Control Variables

We also measured several control variables, which we include in our models both additively and multiplicatively: gender; marital status; age; access to the Internet; possession of a cellular phone; ability to read, write, and do math; education level; income; and sectarian affiliation (Sunni/Shia). These variables have all been cited as potential correlates of support for violent politics.¹⁶ We also controlled for various attitudinal measures, including views on the US government’s influence on the world, views on the US government’s influence on Pakistan, and belief that Shari’a law is about physical punishment (which should proxy for agreement with the theological elements of militant organizations’ ideologies). We hypothesize that negative views of the United States and belief in the corporal punishment aspects of Shari’a should be positively related to support for militant organizations. Moreover, we control for religiosity using two dummy variables indicating those who attend Quran study sessions (dars e Quran) daily and those who attend occasionally with nonattenders as the omitted category. Question wordings for all control variables are provided in Online Appendix B. Finally, in the regression models, we also include province fixed effects to account for regional differences in support for militant groups.

Methods of Analysis

To test Hypothesis 1, we estimate the following ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model:

P_{i} = β_{1} T_{i} + β_{2} D_{i} + β_{3} (T_{i} * D_{i}) + α_{j} + ϵ_{i},

where P_i is a continuous variable representing average support for the four target policies, T_i is a dummy variable representing assignment to the treatment condition, D_i is a continuous variable ranging from support for zero democratic values (0) to support for all six values (1), α _j are province fixed effects, and ∊ _i is a normally distributed error term. β₁ represents our measure of support for militant groups—the change in support for the policy due to the group endorsement—among respondents who score lowest on the democracy index. β₂ represents the effect of democratic values on support for policies among respondents in the control group. β₁ + β₃ represents support for militancy among respondents who are the strongest supporters of democracy. Hence, the key parameter of interest is β₃, from which we can derive the marginal effect of support for democracy on support for militancy (following Brambor, Clark, and Golder 2006; Kam and Franzese 2007).

Note that the difference in variance across policies suggests that some may exhibit greater treatment effects than others because prior attitudes are less well formed. We therefore use the variance of the responses in the control group to proxy looseness of pretreatment attitudes and account for its influence by weighting each policy response by this variance. Further, because the policies may have different valence in each province, we calculate weights based on the within-province variance. Hence, we place greater weight on policies where the survey responses lead us to expect a greater likelihood that attitudes will be shifted in response to the endorsements.¹⁷

To test the robustness of our results, we also estimate a series of more-saturated models, the most complex of which is represented by equation (2):

P_{i} = β_{1} T_{i} + β_{2} D_{i} + β_{3} (T_{i} * D_{i}) + α_{j} + η x_{i} + λ z_{i} + ξ T_{i} x_{i} + ψ T_{i} z_{i} + ϵ_{i},

where x_i represents a vector of demographic control variables and z_i represents a vector of attitudinal and religiosity control variables.¹⁸ Note that equation (2) includes interaction terms between the controls and the treatment dummy. To test Hypothesis 2, we estimate models 1 and 2 by group and for combinations of groups that vary in their association with azadi narratives.

To test Hypothesis 3, we estimate an analogous set of models:

P_{i} = β_{1} T_{i} + β_{2} D_{i} + β_{3} K_{i} + β_{3} K_{i} + β_{4} (T_{i} \times D_{i}) + β_{5} (T_{i} \times K_{i}) + β_{6} (D_{i} \times K_{i}) + β_{7} (T_{i} \times D_{i} \times K_{i}) + γ_{i} + ε_{i,}

P_{i} = α + β_{1} T_{i} + β_{2} D_{i} + β_{3} K_{i} + β_{4} (T_{i} \times D_{i}) + β_{5} (T_{i} \times K_{i}) + β_{6} (D_{i} \times K_{i}) + β_{7} (T_{i} \times D_{i} \times K_{i}), + α_{j} + η x_{i} + λ z_{i} + ξ T_{i} x_{i} + ψ T_{i} z_{i} + ε_{i},

where K_i represents respondents’ beliefs about the state of Muslims in Kashmir. As mentioned in the section titled “Measuring Support for Democratic Values,” these beliefs are measured using an index based on three questions about each groups’ goals. Interpreting these models is complex; we follow procedures laid out by Brambor, Clark, and Golder (2006). The main parameter of interest is represented by β₇, which allows us to test whether the democracy–militancy relationship implied by Hypothesis 1 is stronger among respondents high on the “Kashmir beliefs” index than those lower on the index.

Obviously, we cannot randomly assign democratic values to respondents. Accordingly, what we report below are associations between support for democratic values and support for militant politics. Nonetheless, one of the main null hypotheses that we are testing—one that is often posited in the policy community—is that those who do not support democracy are more prone to militancy. If we find no association between these variables in this posited negative direction, it is unlikely that there is a causal relationship in that direction.

Results

Consistent with Hypothesis 1, we find that support for democratic values is positively associated with support for militant groups. In the first column of Table 1, we present the estimates from the simple model described in equation (1). Controlling for provincial differences in support, we find that among those scoring zero on the democracy scale, the group endorsement actually decreases support for the policies by about 2.6 percentage points (β₁ = −.026, p < .01, two-tailed). However, among the strongest supporters of democracy, we estimate the treatment effect of the endorsements to be positive 1.5 percentage points (β₁ + β₃ = .015, p = .06). Therefore, the overall effect of democracy on support for militant groups is 4.2 percentage points (β₃ = .042, p < .01). In Figure 3, we plot the marginal effect of support for democracy along with the associated 95 percent confidence interval. Among weak supporters of democracy, the treatment effect of the endorsement cues is negative. Strong supports of democracy, however, are more supportive of the policies as a result of the endorsements.

Figure 3.

Support for militancy by support for democratic values. Note: Marginal effect of endorsement effect (and 95 percent confidence interval) plotted against values of democratic values index (property rights, free speech, independent courts, government by elected representatives, civilian control of the military, freedom of assembly).

How big is this effect in substantive terms? In the control group, support for the government policies is 12.1 percentage points higher among respondents who support democratic values, as indicated by the parameter estimate of β₂. Hence, our difference-in-difference estimate represents about 35 percent of this baseline level of support and is therefore substantively meaningful. Another way to assess the effect size is to compare it to the effect of income—an expectedly strong predictor—on support for the policies. Unsurprisingly, going from the bottom income group to the top income group is associated with a 6.1 percentage point decrease in support for the policies, three of which involve social services. The difference-in-difference estimate (β₃) represents almost 70 percent of the income effect.

This finding is highly robust. In column 2 of Table 1, we present estimates from a regression specification including demographic controls along with a dummy variable for respondents who did not answer the income question.¹⁹ In column 3, we listwise delete cases for which we do not have a valid income response. In column 4, we include attitudinal controls in the model. Finally, in column 5, we estimate the model represented by equation (2), which includes all the main and interactive effects. Our estimate of β₃ is highly stable across all specifications, representing between 3.6 and 4.2 percent of the range of the dependent variable.

Consistent with Hypothesis 2, we find that the positive relationship between democratic values and the endorsement effect is strongest for groups that are associated with an azadi narrative. As shown in Table 2, the difference-in-difference estimate of β₃ from equation (1) is positive and significant for all four groups. However, it is more than 60 percent larger for the Kashmir tanzeem and Afghan Taliban—groups associated with an azadi narrative—than for al-Qa’ida and the sectarian tanzeems. The pooled estimate of β₃ for the azadi groups is .040 (p < .01), higher than the pooled estimate for the nonazadi groups (.025, p = .03). Although the difference between these two coefficient estimates is not statistically significant, it is substantively large and in the direction we expect.

Table 2.

Support for Democratic Values is More Strongly Correlated with Support for Azadi Groups.

	Azadi groups			Non-azadi groups
	Kashmir tanzeem	Afghan Taliban	Pooled azadi	al-Qa’ida	Sectarian tanzeem	Pooled non-azadi
β₁: Group cue	−0.042***	−0.045***	−0.031***	−0.036***	−0.027***	−0.020***
β₁: Group cue	(0.010)	(0.010)	(0.008)	(0.009)	(0.010)	(0.007)
β₂: Support for democratic values	0.080***	0.084***	0.091***	0.082***	0.082***	0.091***
β₂: Support for democratic values	(0.015)	(0.016)	(0.014)	(0.015)	(0.015)	(0.014)
β₃: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values	0.047***	0.043**	0.040***	0.031*	0.023	0.025**
β₃: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values	(0.016)	(0.017)	(0.014)	(0.016)	(0.017)	(0.012)
Constant	0.826***	0.805***	0.803***	0.807***	0.843***	0.813***
Constant	(0.033)	(0.035)	(0.032)	(0.034)	(0.035)	(0.032)
R ²	0.154	0.142	0.189	0.149	0.154	0.194
N	5,243	5,243	5,243	5,243	5,243	5,243

Note: OLS regressions predicting support for policies. Data weighted and adjusted for sampling design. All regressions include region fixed effects, demographic controls, and attitudinal controls. Demographic controls include gender, marital status, age, access to Internet, possession of cellular phone, ability to read, ability to write, ability to perform arithmetic, formal education level, income, and religion sect. Attitudinal controls include two measures of attitudes toward United States, views of Shari’a law, and religiosity.

***p < .01. **p < .05. *p < .10 (two tailed).

Consistent with Hypothesis 3, we find that the positive democracy–militancy relationship shown in Figure 3 is driven by those who feel that the groups are fighting for democratic values. We present estimates from equation (3) in the first column of Table 3. The parameter estimate of β₇ is positive and statistically significant (β₇ = .121, p = .098), indicating that the difference-in-difference estimate increases by 12.1 percentage points as we move from belief that Muslims are not being mistreated in Kashmir and that they want to live under Indian control (K_i = 0) to belief that Muslims are disenfranchised (K_i = 1). Figure 4 illustrates these results. Note that the slope of the relationship between support for democratic values and the endorsement effect is essentially flat among those low on the Kashmir index (K_i < 1), and becomes positive and steep when the value of the index is 1. Columns (2) through (5) of Table 3 show this result is robust to specification choice and the addition of control variables. Online Appendix Table H shows the estimate of β₃ is correctly signed for all six components of the democracy index, with the strongest relationship being for four particular indicators—property rights, independent courts, elected representatives, and freedom of assembly.

Figure 4.

Moderating effect of views of Muslims in Kashmir on democracy–militancy relationship. Note: Marginal effect of endorsement effect (and 95 percent confidence interval) plotted against values of democratic values index (property rights, free speech, independent courts, government by elected representatives, civilian control of the military, freedom of assembly) for two subsets of respondents: (a) those with values of less than 1 on the Kashmir Index and (b) those with values of 1 on the Kashmir index.

Table 3.

Perception of Muslims in Kashmir Moderates the Democracy–Militancy Relationship.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
β₁: Group cue	0.010	0.015	0.024	0.019	−0.004
β₁: Group cue	(0.030)	(0.029)	(0.029)	(0.029)	(0.037)
β₂: Support for democratic values	0.175***	0.159***	0.159***	0.163***	0.165***
β₂: Support for democratic values	(0.050)	(0.044)	(0.047)	(0.042)	(0.042)
β₃: Perception of Muslims in Kashmir	0.082***	0.065***	0.074**	0.063***	0.061***
β₃: Perception of Muslims in Kashmir	(0.023)	(0.022)	(0.023)	(0.022)	(0.023)
β₄: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values	−0.082	−0.098	−0.090	−0.102	−0.101
β₄: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values	(0.070)	(0.064)	(0.068)	(0.065)	(0.065)
β₅: Group Cue × Perception of Muslims in Kashmir	−0.037	−0.040	−0.052	−0.043	−0.038
β₅: Group Cue × Perception of Muslims in Kashmir	(0.033)	(0.031)	(0.031)	(0.032)	(0.033)
β₆: Support for Democratic Values × Perception of Muslims in Kashmir	−0.058	−0.069	−0.070	−0.075*	−0.078*
	(0.052)	(0.045)	(0.048)	(0.044)	(0.044)
β₇: Group Cue × Support for Democratic Values × Perception of Muslims in Kashmir	0.121*	0.135**	0.129*	0.137**	0.138**
	(0.073)	(0.067)	(0.071)	(0.067)	(0.068)
Constant	0.675***	0.789***	0.781***	0.760***	0.770***
Constant	(0.024)	(0.032)	(0.032)	(0.036)	(0.037)
R ²	0.156	0.255	0.253	0.263	0.268
N	5,002	5,002	4,864	5,002	5,002
Region fixed effects	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Demographic controls	N	Y	Y	Y	Y
Income listwise deleted	—	N	Y	N	N
Attitudinal controls	N	N	N	Y	Y
Group cue–demographics interactions	N	N	N	N	Y
Group cue–attitudinal interaction	N	N	N	N	Y

Note: OLS regressions predicting support for policies. Data weighted and adjusted for sampling design. Demographic controls include marital status, age, access to Internet, possession of cellular phone, ability to read, ability to write, ability to perform arithmetic, formal education level, income, and religion sect. Attitudinal controls include two measures of attitudes toward United States, views of Shari’a law, and religiosity.

***p < .01. **p < .05. *p < .10 (two-tailed).

Discussion

To better understand the politics of militancy in Pakistan and to shed light on larger theories about the relationship between democratic values and support for violent political organizations, we designed and conducted a 6,000-person provincially representative survey of Pakistani adults, measuring affect toward four specific militant organizations. We applied a novel measurement strategy to mitigate social desirability bias and item nonresponse given the sensitive nature of militancy in the region. Our endorsement experiment overcomes several issues that have plagued past efforts to use surveys to study the politics of militancy.

Using this innovative approach we find that support for a set of core liberal democratic values is correlated with higher support for militant groups. This finding contradicts the conventional wisdom which underlies recent US policy approaches to Pakistan and the Muslim world. We measure support for democratic values using an index that aggregates support for six key values: property rights, free speech, independent courts, rule by elected representatives, civilian control of the military, and freedom of assembly. Moving from the lowest value on this index to the highest value is associated with a 4 percentage point increase in support for militant groups.

This result may seem puzzling but it makes sense in the particular context of Pakistan where militant groups (and their advocates in government) have long justified their actions as defending azadi, a concept that loosely translates as freedom and self-determination. Our results are consistent with this history in two respects. First, the relationship between democracy and support is strongest for groups whose concerns are more closely associated with azadi narratives. Second, the relationship is strongest for respondents whose beliefs about Kashmir are consistent with the azadi narrative and who consequently may plausibly believe that the groups are fighting for justice, for democracy, and to protect Muslim sovereignty.

Moving beyond Pakistan, one larger theoretical contribution of this research is to reaffirm that individuals’ attitudes toward violent political organizations depend heavily on their beliefs about the political context. This has long been recognized in other settings (see, e.g., Prothro and Grigg 1960) but is underappreciated in current debates about Islamist militancy. Simply put, there is no clean mapping between personal adherence to values that seem normatively attractive (such as a belief in individual liberty) and rejection of normatively unappealing methods of political contestation. In Pakistan, for example, some militant groups’ rhetoric justifying the fight for azadi has been so widely accepted that it is exactly those who believe most deeply in democratic values that are most supportive of violent groups.

The policy implications of this research are stark. Whether democratic values are a force for peace or for conflict depends on the how people understand the political context. Those seeking to promote pacific dispute resolution and orderly politics in Pakistan and elsewhere need to move beyond efforts to delegitimize violence in a normative sense toward attempts to convince potential supporters of violent methods that such tactics are counterproductive. It may be easier to convince people that the facts of the situation call for different political behavior than it is to change their underlying attitudes. In Pakistan, such an approach might entail mechanisms to convey unbiased information on how Muslims are treated in India. Our results also suggest that versions of Radio Free Europe in the Middle East (e.g., Radio Sawa) may not be efficacious.

Nonetheless, there are problems with interpreting findings from surveys in the context of studying ongoing, politically high-risk activity. Even if one could change the views of the population toward militant groups, it is unclear what impact such changes would have on militant activity. Mass beliefs and elite actions are distinct concepts. On one hand, increased public support for militant groups in a region could make it easier for such groups to operate in secrecy and enlarge their recruitment pool. On the other hand, it could bring greater attention to that area from state security services, which might outweigh these advantages. Further, analyzing a cross-sectional survey is inherently static and not ideally suited to studying high-risk political situations characterized by uncertainty and constantly changing political dynamics. Unfortunately, there is as yet no systematic research that can help disentangle these effects. Such work would require panel data on both violence and on public opinion and a source of variation in public opinion that was independent of factors driving violence. While such data exist for both Afghanistan and Iraq, and to a lesser extent for Palestine, it is unclear whether there are viable strategies for identifying plausibly exogenous variation in public opinion (though see Iyengar and Monten [2008] for an approach using variation in media coverage).

Finally, this article suggests some new lines of inquiry for students of both violent politics and political behavior. For those studying violent politics, the article highlights the potential importance of learning about how beliefs about the strategic environment interact with deeply seated attitudes to generate support for specific militant organizations. Future studies can potentially manipulate beliefs about the strategic impact of the groups’ actions and measure resulting changes in support for militant groups. What we show here is that measuring highly sensitive political attitudes is feasible even in highly contested places.²⁰ For those studying political behavior, the article provides further evidence that beliefs about the political environment interact with long-standing values to generate attitudes toward specific actors. This means one cannot look solely at what is going on inside peoples’ heads, but must also examine how interact with political structures, organizations, and institutions.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Scott Ashworth, Ethan Bueno de Mequita, Will Bullock, Kosuke Imai, Amaney Jamal, Roger Myerson, the anonymous reviewers, the editorial team, and participants in seminars at the Harris School of Public Policy, Princeton University, and the Islam and Muslim Societies conference at Harvard University, all of whom provided invaluable feedback. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not reflect views of the United States Department of Homeland Security or United States Department of Defense. All mistakes are ours.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: We acknowledge grant #2007-ST-061-000001 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (Fair and Shapiro) and grant #FA9550-09-1-0314 by U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Research Initiative through the Air Force Officer of Scientific Research.

Notes

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