Essays on Multiracial “Political Blackness”

Isaiah Johnson, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Politics

“He Who Believes is Not Afraid”: Effects of Religious Ideology on Risk Perception and Engagement in Conflict

Hannah Kazis-Taylor, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Politics

Scholarship has debated whether and how religion fuels conflict. Recent political science literature has argued that leaders instrumentally manipulating religious sentiment to overcome collective action problems explains the apparent relationship. I draw on psychology literature to theorize a different mechanism through which religion shapes engagement in conflict. I propose that religious/ideological outlook lessens people’s perception of the risks associated with engaging in conflict in the name of their beliefs. Lower perceived risk of engaging in conflict removes a deterrent to a person engaging in dangerous activities, and thereby increases the likelihood of them doing so. I motivate my argument by showing that religious ideology affects sensitivity to security risks in the Israeli context, with Palestinian attacks leading to greater out-migration from secular towns as compared to religious ones. I find support for the mechanism of religious ideology minimizing people’s sense of risk using monthly survey data on fear of terrorism, and an original dataset of instances of political violence. I show that each attack in a respondent’s area is associated with a greater increase in reported fear among secular as compared to religious people. Drawing on interview data, I argue that religious ideology dampens fear, facilitating adherents’ assuming personal risks to participate in a conflict. I plan to conduct an experiment testing the effect of religious salience on levels of fear.