Violent Conflict and Parochial Trust: Lab-in-the-Field and Survey Evidence

Katharina Werner () and Ahmed Skali
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Katharina Werner: University of Passau

No 404, HiCN Working Papers from Households in Conflict Network

Abstract: How does conflict exposure affect trust? We hypothesize that direct (firsthand) experience with conflict induces parochialism: trust towards out-groups worsens, but trust towards in-groups, owing to positive experiences of kin solidarity, may improve. Indirect exposure to conflict through third-party accounts, on the other hand, reduces trust toward everyone, owing to negativity bias. We find consistent support for our hypotheses in a lab-in-the-field experiment in Maluku, Indonesia, which witnessed a salient Christian-Muslim conflict during 1999-2002, as well as in three cross-country datasets exploiting temporal and spatial variation in exposure to violence. Our results help resolve a seeming contradiction in the literature and inform policies on resolving conflicts.

Keywords: trust; conflict; direct exposure; indirect exposure; religion; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D74 Z12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 83 pages
Date: 2023-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-sea and nep-soc
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Related works:
Working Paper: Violent Conflict and Parochial Trust: Lab-in-the-Field and Survey Evidence (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hic:wpaper:404

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