Measuring Support for ISIS through Endorsement Experiments

• In Event: Religious Authority, Religiosity, and Political Competition in the Middle East

Abstract

What drives support for jihadist groups like ISIS? We shed light on this question by conducting a YouGov survey of 14,000 respondents in eleven Middle Eastern countries in December 2017. Embedded in the survey were fourteen endorsement experiments, allowing us to measure whether support for these statements increased when endorsed by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Results suggest that support for ISIS is highest in Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan, and lowest in Turkey. The paper then explores how a number of country-level and individual-level covariates can help to explain this variation in support for ISIS. Overall, the paper highlights the importance of utilizing indirect survey questions for such sensitive topics.

Authors

• Sharan Grewal, College of William & Mary

• A.Kadir Yildirim, Rice University

• Scott Williamson, Stanford

• Yusuf Sarfati, Illinois State University