Know Your Enemy: Misinformation and Misperceptions in Counterinsurgency

• In Event: Citizen-State Interactions in the Shadow of Conflict

Abstract

Existing research shows a substantial gap between civilians’ political preferences and the way that elites perceive their preferences. We argue that police officers and counterinsurgents face a similar challenge. Citizens who have different priorities contact the police at different rates, causing officers to misperceive both citizens’ priorities and the issues the community faces. These misperceptions can severely harm public safety provision. We explore this argument in the rural Philippines. Using an original survey of Philippines National Police officers, we find substantial variation in the extent to which officers believe citizens in their municipality sympathize with insurgents. We compare officer perceptions to true levels of insurgent support using an original survey of nearly 4,000 civilians, as well as administrative data from the Philippine government. We then test whether officers’ misperceptions of sympathy for insurgents are caused by the nature of their interactions with citizens.

Authors

• Dotan A Haim, Dartmouth College

• Matthew Nanes, Saint Louis University

• Nico Ravanilla, University of California San Diego