Theoretical motivation

Where armed groups invoke religious doctrine to justify violence and recruit supporters, policymakers increasingly amplify the voices of moderate religious leaders as credible sources of pro-peace messaging. Many of these interventions draw on research that finds that religious leaders can encourage pro-social attitudes and behaviors by the nature of their divinely ordained authority, by promising divine rewards, or by drawing on scripture to persuade the faithful (Masoud, Jamal, and Nugent Reference Masoud, Jamal and Nugent2016; Condra, Isaqzadeh, and Linardi Reference Condra, Isaqzadeh and Linardi2019). Spreading the messages shared by these leaders is part of a broader strategy to counter violent extremism by winning the hearts and minds of potential recruits (Berman, Felter, and Shapiro Reference Berman, Felter and Shapiro2020). These, and other, international interventions seek to increase tolerance of out-groups and promote social cohesion to counter the hardening of cleavages and prejudice that result from sustained inter-group violence (Scacco and Warren Reference Scacco and Warren2018).

In conflict settings that increase the salience of specific social identities, priming cross-cutting cleavages may also provide another mechanism to bring together in-group and out-group members. Emphasizing superordinate identities, such as a shared religion or national identity to which both the in-group and out-group belong, has been shown to positively alter attitudes (Charnysh, Lucas, and Singh Reference Charnysh, Lucas and Singh2015; Siegel and Badaan Reference Siegel and Badaan2020; Kalin and Siddiqui Reference Kalin and Siddiqui2020).

However, there are many reasons to be cautious about the generalizability of these findings. While moderate religious leaders may theoretically be seen as impartial, in practice many such actors are politically engaged and may be perceived as such, undermining their credibility (Nomikos Reference Nomikos2022). Alternatively, religious leaders may be persuasive because they are part of dense, local networks; their messages may lose efficacy when removed from their context. Similarly, religious sermons facilitate behavioral change due, in part, to the collective social setting in which they are delivered (McClendon and Riedl Reference McClendon and Riedl2015). Even where studies have demonstrated that religious messages shift attitudes, recipients were persuaded only in some domains (Masoud, Jamal, and Nugent Reference Masoud, Jamal and Nugent2016). Moreover, extremist rhetoric may be convincing primarily because it is seen as challenging the status quo or because it is often accompanied by material inducements (Mitts, Phillips, and Walter forthcoming).

Finally, it is unclear whether these findings apply to adolescents, a primary target for recruitment by Islamist groups (Bizina and Gray Reference Bizina and Gray2014). Evidence across Africa suggests that armed groups recruit youth who feel left behind by society and locked out of alternative opportunities (Blattman Reference Blattman2009; Debos Reference Debos2011; Trisko Darden Reference Trisko Darden2019), relying on family or social networks as well as extensive propaganda and indoctrination campaigns to do so (Beber and Blattman Reference Beber and Blattman2013). For these youth, supporting a militant cause can provide a sense of purpose and belonging, offer economic stability, or strengthen group-based identity. Separate from joining militant groups, both direct exposure to violence and indirect exposure − growing up in violent environs, having family members and friends threatened by violence − affect young people’s attitudes and behavior, such as their willingness to engage in risk-taking behavior (Pat-Horenczyk et al. Reference Pat-Horenczyk, Peled, Miron, Brom, Villa and Chemtob2007; Blattman Reference Blattman2009).

Which types of development programs are most effective among adolescents in such settings remains an open question. An initiative focused on providing secondary education and civic engagement opportunities to Somali youth in Somaliand, for example, found mixed results on youth support for extremism (Trisko Darden Reference Trisko Darden2019). Whether pro-peace messaging, and specifically religious authoritative appeals, affect adolescents is even more unclear. Some studies have found that community members perceived as credible can prevent youth radicalization (Norman and Mikhael Reference Norman and Mikhael2017). Another study of youth in Ghana, however, found that religious organizations and churches, particularly in their role as messengers of theology, are not “significant socialization agents” in “informing notions of citizenship” and influencing political engagement (Kuperus and Asante Reference Kuperus and Asante2021). Whether such findings travel to settings with a growing Islamist insurgency is a question we take up here.

Research context

To test whether pro-peace appeals from religious leaders can counter support for violent extremism and promote intergroup tolerance, we fielded a survey experiment in Burkina Faso, a landlocked West African country of about 21 million people and the site of ongoing violence perpetrated by multiple Islamist extremist groups. Attacks by religious extremist groups have killed almost 2,500 individuals and displaced 500,000 others since January 2016 (see Figure 1). ^{Footnote 1} These groups have proliferated in the context of a broader regional Islamic revival that has resulted in a “democratization of religious interpretation” centered on modern communication methods (Madore Reference Madore2013; Idrissa Reference Idrissa2017). Religious shows are regularly broadcast on the radio and audio recordings of sermons circulate widely. While this provides extremist preachers a podium through which to spread their messages, it also presents opportunities for moderate leaders’ counter-programming.

Figure 1

Fatalities and internally displaced persons in Burkina Faso: 2010–2020.

Islamist extremist groups have capitalized on longstanding grievances to recruit members of marginalized ethnic communities, primarily the Fulani, to mobilize against a central government dominated by the Mossi ethnic group. As Human Rights Watch notes, this situation has led to “a dramatic and dangerous increase in ethnic tension” (2019). The Mossi suffer disproportionately from armed Islamist violence, and state security forces target Fulani civilians for their perceived support of militants. Many militants operate in Fulani-inhabited areas, entrenching the perception that this group is to blame for shattering decades of perceived harmony and peaceful coexistence. Assumptions that all Burkinabé citizens share this idealized view of the past have influenced local and international policy response.

Research design

We administered an in-person survey experiment with 1,457 students in 12 schools in February–March 2020. ^{Footnote 2} Given the age of our sample and the instability of the context, we strove to minimize any potential harm to participants. Following recently developed best practices for experiments in Africa (Davis Reference Davis2020), we collaborated with local stakeholders to develop and implement the study. This collaboration allowed us to secure approvals from school principals and teachers and consent from parents before students were approached to participate. ^{Footnote 3} In an initial visit to Ouagadougou in March 2019, we also conducted interviews with academics, religious leaders, security analysts, and NGOs to assess the ethics and feasibility of studying radicalization and violent extremism in a quickly changing context. These interviews helped us ensure that our study design was both locally relevant and culturally appropriate.

The survey was administered in partnership with a local nongovernmental organization whose enumerators conducted face-to-face interviews with each respondent. We piloted the survey in January 2020 to further test the appropriateness and validity of the question language and approaches to measurement. All participants consented to be a part of the study, and only one participant refused to complete all parts of the questionnaire. We attribute the high response rate to the support of the local communities, principals, teachers, and parents. ^{Footnote 4}

We sampled schools from two regions, Ouagadougou and Kenedougou. Ouagadougou, the country’s capital, presents a peri-urban environment where youth participate in broad social networks that can be used for recruitment, while Kenedougou offers a rural context where extremists can leverage pre-existing grievances to recruit based on social identity. All students in the sample were enrolled in either sixth or seventh grade, with ages ranging from 12 to 18 and a median age of 14.

Respondents were randomly assigned to a control condition or one of four treatment conditions in which enumerators played an audio recording of Alidou Ilboudo, a prominent Burkinabé imam and radio host, speaking in 2019 to encourage intergroup tolerance. ^{Footnote 5} Enumerators asked respondents to listen closely to the speech prior to playing the recording; respondents could then ask to listen again or pose clarifying questions. As such, we consider this a stronger treatment than if the excerpt had simply been read aloud by the enumerator or if the respondents read it themselves in an online survey; prior studies have detected statistically significant effects using both of these approaches. ^{Footnote 6}

We divide our outcomes into three categories. First, we measured respondents’ attitudes toward out-groups along two dimensions: their willingness to have other ethnic or religious groups as neighbors and their level of trust in others. Second, we asked respondents direct questions about their support for religious extremism, including whether they thought the use of violence was ever justified, though we acknowledge the possibility that these questions are too extreme to capture the nuances of lower levels of sympathy for extremist groups. ^{Footnote 7} Third, a behavioral measure of civic participation at the end of our survey asked respondents to record a brief voice memo to express “support for peace and tolerance in your community” and send it to one of a number of local organizations or authorities. ^{Footnote 8}

We estimate the average treatment effect for each outcome with an OLS estimator given by ${Y_i} = {\beta _0} + {\beta _1}{Z_i} + {\varepsilon _i}$ where Y _i is binary indicator of whether a given respondent i agreed or strongly agreed with a statement about an outgroup, violent extremism, or sent a recorded message. ^{Footnote 9} Z _i is the binary indicator for whether a respondent received the treatment or control. Given the large number of outcomes in which we are interested, we implement a parametric multiple comparison correction of our estimates for robustness (reported in full in Appendix E). We also specify the primary outcome variables in our pre-analysis plan as a design-based corrective for the multiple comparisons problem (Olken Reference Olken2015; Ofosu and Posner Reference Ofosu and Posner2021). ^{Footnote 10}