Displaced Loyalties: The Effects of Indiscriminate Violence on Attitudes Among Syrian Refugees in Turkey

Kristin Fabbe, Chad Hazlett and Tolga Sinmazdemir
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Kristin Fabbe: Harvard Business School
Chad Hazlett: UCLA
Tolga Sinmazdemir: Bogazici University

Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) Working Papers from Empirical Studies of Conflict Project

Abstract: How does violence during conflict affect the political attitudes of civilians who leave the conflict zone? Using a survey of 1,384 Syrian refugees in Turkey, we employ a natural experiment owing to the inaccuracy of barrel bombs to examine the effect of having one’s home destroyed on political and community loyalties. We find that refugees who lose a home to barrel bombing, while more likely to feel threatened by the Assad regime, are less supportive of the opposition, and instead more likely to say no armed group in the conflict represents them – opposite to what is expected when civilians are captive in the conflict zone and must choose sides for their protection. Respondents also show heightened volunteership towards fellow refugees. Altogether, this suggests that when civilians flee the conflict zone, they withdraw support from all armed groups rather than choosing sides, instead of showing solidarity with their civilian community.

Keywords: Syria; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara, nep-cwa and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:esocpu:7

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