EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR: PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF TRANSFORMATION
Daphna Canetti & Miriam Lindner The University of Haifa, Israel
In: The Psychology of Change: Life Contexts, Experiences, and Identities. Edited by K.J. Reynolds & N.R. Branscombe. New York: Psychology Press, forthcoming.
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR Acknowledgments: The projects presented in this chapter were made possible, in part, by grants awarded to Daphna Canetti and colleagues from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH073687), from the Israel Science Foundation (487/08), and from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (2009460), and from the Institute for Social and Policy Studies and the Macmillan Center at Yale University. All errors are our own.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Daphna Canetti:
[email protected]
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Civilians living in societies suffering from prolonged conflict deal with daily exposure to war-related events, including resurgences of political violence and terrorism that cause casualties. Many studies have shown that political violence often results in large-scale transformations in affected societies. For example, political violence has been linked to deterioration in economic conditions (Abadie & Gardeazabal, 2003) and the availability of employment (Greenbaum, Dugan, & LaFree, 2007). Individual-level exposure and its effects, however, have received less attention outside the boundaries of clinical psychology and social work. This is surprising since individual exposure to conflict and violence can result in drastic, sometimes long-lasting, changes in physical and mental health of exposed individuals, which in turn has implications for the wider politics of conflict, including radical shifts in political attitudes. Hence, the following questions deserve particular attention: How are people changed by the context in which they live in? How, and by which mechanisms, does exposure to conflict violence lead to – mostly radical transformations in civilians’ subsequent political attitudes and behavior? We argue that in order to understand radical shifts in political attitudes among those affected by political violence we need to account for personal exposure, along with various psychological mechanisms such as stress and threat perceptions. By reviewing contemporary literature on political psychology in conflict zones, we hope to contribute a more nuanced understanding of how individual exposure to political violence and terrorism shapes the politics of conflict, including the extent to which it is possible to change individual responses to exposure to political violence – an issue that preoccupies much social and public policy and is central to clinical,
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR organizational, and health agendas aimed at improving lives. Theoretically, the work presented here connects individual trauma following political violence with wider collective political perceptions and attitudes, and as such, breaks new ground. Understanding and ultimately resolving, long-standing conflicts remains a first-order global goal. Unfortunately, however, radical shifts in political attitudes such as increased outgroup negativity – can significantly hinder peacemaking efforts and counter reconciliation efforts. Civilians living in societies suffering from intractable conflicts face extended periods under difficult conditions of human and material loss, exhaustion, misery, uncertainty, grief, danger, demands for resources, and other hardships (e.g., Bar-Tal, 2007). We believe that psychological mechanisms reflecting the wrongs or hardships suffered – commonly termed ‘grievances’ (Cederman, Wimmer, & Min, 2010) - can serve as a key to understanding radical political shifts following exposure to political violence. In this chapter, we focus on prolonged exposure to political violence. The term “political violence” is used here to include violence between countries (e.g., the Israel-Lebanon War) and protracted conflicts within countries (e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).1We address changes in two types of political attitudes: intra-societal attitudes (e.g., exclusionism and political intolerance) and inter-societal attitudes (e.g., support for militancy, violence, and reconciliation). In this chapter we first define individual exposure, showing that civilians are not exposed to political violence to the same degree. Further, we identify acute stress and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as key mechanisms for understanding changes in political attitudes, followed by additional psychological mechanisms that are relevant in violent contexts. We show that prolonged exposure to violence does 1
To a limited extent, studies will also refer to singular terrorist attacks, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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not directly translate into political changes – rather, it is prolonged individual exposure, along with stress and cognitive threat perceptions, which encourage uncompromising and militant political attitudes. We conclude with a discussion of individuals working to tackle these perceptions with the aim of creating a brighter future in affected societies. We show that people are changed by the context they live in – and that these changes are, unfortunately, mostly characterized by a hardening of political attitudes in ways that make peace more difficult to achieve.
Exposure to Political Violence: Impact and Effects While much work in political science has examined the effects of exposure to political violence on political behavior and attitudes, many of these studies have suffered from two shortcomings: they have analyzed the effects of exposure to political violence at the community and national level, or focused on singular events of terrorism2 rather than on the impact of continuous exposure to political violence. While these studies have shown that prolonged exposure to political violence and terrorism influence overall preferences of the Israeli electorate (Berrebi & Klor, 2008), research linking individual exposure and political attitudes is scarce. In fact, many have failed to measure individual exposure, whether directly or indirectly, to the attacks (Davis & Silver, 2004; Echebarria, Echabe, & Fernández-Guede, 2006; Jakobsson & Blom, 2014; Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003). We argue that prolonged individual exposure to political violence is key to 2
The distinction between singular terrorist attacks and prolonged violence is crucial: while the initial severe symptoms in response to 9/11 subsided substantially within several months (Galea, Ahern, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Bucuvalas, Gold, & Vlahov, 2003), recovery in ongoing conflict is fraught with and interrupted by continued violence and uncertainty, thereby undermining basic safety needs (Canetti, Galea, Hall, Johnson, Palmieri, & Hobfoll, 2010) and influencing daily activities and social life over many years, and sometimes decades.
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR understanding subsequent changes in the political attitudes of individuals living amid conflict. Although many studies in political psychology have examined individual exposure and political violence, a clear definition seems hard to come by. Here, we borrow a definition of individual exposure from the domain of clinical psychology, and apply it to political psychology. While many studies have defined exposure broadly, for example in terms of the number of victims one knows personally (Huddy, Feldman, Capelos, & Provost, 2002; Huddy, Feldman, & Weber, 2007), others have defined individual exposure as victimization — the harm directly or indirectly experienced by individuals amid prolonged conflict and political violence (e.g., Lyall, Blair, & Imai, 2014). In a recent study conducted in the context of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, Canetti, Russ, Luborsky and Hobfoll (2014) employed a novel strategy to identify individual exposure to political violence, combining physical, geographic and emotional personal exposure of civilians. Here, the definition of personal exposure is based on the assumption that political violence deliberately creates fear and anxiety, not only among those who are personally exposed – that is, who were harmed themselves or whose family members or close friends were harmed - but also among members of the targeted group that do not suffer personal injuries but witness the attack from some emotional and/or physical distance (Canetti et al., 2014). The negative effects of exposure to terrorism and political violence are in no way restricted to individuals who have been directly affected by attacks (e.g. Palmieri, Chipman, Canetti, Johnson, & Hobfoll, 2010). Keinan, Sadeh and Rosen (2003), for example, showed that exposure to media coverage of terrorist acts was associated with the development of symptoms similar to those of PTSD, and other data suggest that the media, through its tendency to magnify and reinforce the effects of terror acts,
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can prompt secondary traumatization (Ben-Zur, Gil, & Shamshins,2012). While direct and indirect exposure can have a similar impact on individuals, their effect on political attitudes, however, may be different. Hayes and McAllister (2001) in the context of Northern Ireland found that indirect exposure to violence enhanced public support for paramilitary groups and reduced support for the decommissioning of paramilitary groups. Direct exposure, though, influenced Catholics and Protestants differently. Catholics exposed to violence increased their support for paramilitary groups, whereas Protestants exposed to violence became less supportive of such groups, suggesting that differences may be attributable to the differential experiences of violence in prolonged, asymmetrical conflict.
Exposure to Political Violence and Mental Health The psychological impact of exposure to conflict events has been well documented. Political violence in general, and terrorism in particular, is associated with a wide range of mental health effects (Norris, Friedman, Watson, Byrne, & Kaniasty, 2002). Here, we focus on two outcomes associated with exposure to terrorism: stress, as an acute response to exposure to political violence, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition that persists long after the stressors have disappeared. PTSD is a common psychological reaction to exposure to terrorism (e.g., Bleich, Gelkopf, & Solomon, 2003; Galea et al., 2002), characterized by reexperiencing the traumatic event (e.g., intrusive memories and nightmares), active avoidance of reminders of the trauma, and hyper-arousal (e.g., anger, sleep disturbance) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Several studies have explored the sad reality of recurring wars and ongoing violence, especially in the Middle East, in order to examine the effects of exposure to
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR political violence on mental health.3 Studies using national samples during the IsraelLebanon war in 1982 (Hobfoll, Lomranz, Bridges, Eyal, Bridges, & Tzemach, 1989) and the first Gulf war in Israel in 1990 (Lomranz, Hobfoll, Johnson, Eyal, & Tzemach, 1994) found heightened levels of depressive mood in civilians that quickly declined with the resolution of conflict. Likewise, Lebanese communities that sustained a high degree of exposure to the Lebanon Wars exhibited an elevated prevalence of depression, even after controlling for pre-war depression (Karam et al., 1998). In the wake of the Second Lebanon War, Farhood, Dimassi and Strauss (2013) found that “trauma exposure, social support and war-related life events, significantly influenced development and intensity of psychiatric morbidity in the Southern Lebanese civilian population” (p. 7). Many studies, conducted in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have produced similar findings. A large survey study (Chipman, Palmieri, Canetti, Johnson, & Hobfoll, 2011) involving 1001 Israelis who had been subjected to direct and indirect exposure to rocket attacks found that almost a third of the sample reported some form of impairment caused by post-traumatic stress, with nearly one fifth (19%) of these respondents meeting the full criteria for diagnosis for PTSD. The prevalence of PTSD and depression among Palestinians in the West Bank was also very high (with 25% of the sample suffering from PTSD, and about 29% suffering from major depression Canetti et al., 2010). Indeed, levels of PTSD and depressive symptoms among Palestinian civilians in Israel were significantly higher than those of Jewish Israelis (Hobfoll, Canetti-Nisim, & Johnson, 2006). Palmieri et al. (2010) showed that among adult Israelis exposed to long-term war and terrorism trauma, 3
An abundant body of work has investigated the psychological implications of singular terrorist attacks in the United States (Galea et al., 2002; Silver et al., 2002), Spain (Miguel-Tobal, Cano-Vindel, Gonzalez-Ordi, & Iruarrizaga, 2006), and the effects of war-related stressors on the mental health of Albanians (Lopes Cardozo, Vergara, Agani & Gotway, 2000; Lopes Cardozo, Kaiser, Gotway & Agani, 2003). Our focus, however, lies on exposure to ongoing political violence.
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more than a third of the sample (37.4%) – which involves more than 1.7 million Israelis - were classified as having clinical-level sleep problems. Importantly, these rates did not differ across high and low exposure regions, illustrating the pervasive and devastating effects of ongoing conflict, where direct attacks have minimal additional impact on mental health functioning. From a public health perspective, the evidence indicates that the direct and indirect costs associated with exposure to political violence are staggering, and it highlights the importance of regularly assessing the factors associated with posttraumatic stress in order to alleviate, or even prevent, psychopathology in highly traumatized populations. However, rather than treating psychological factors as the outcome variable in examining the effects of individual exposure, we suggest that PTSD and stress might serve as important key mechanisms in enacting a radical shift of political attitudes among affected civilians.
Mechanisms Affecting Change Amid Conflict Stress Examining mental health effects is surely an important task, but most studies do not exhaust the full spectrum of outcomes likely to emerge in terms of individual changes following exposure to violence. We argue that stress and PTSD act as key mechanisms in enacting radical shifts in intra- and inter-state attitudes, which have important consequences for peacemaking and reconciliation processes. Exposure to political violence influences not only the physical and psychological wellbeing of individuals, but also shapes how they think and act politically. Much work in political science examines the effects of exposure to political violence on political behavior, including political participation and voting (e.g., Blattmann, 2009; Gilligan, Pasquale, & Samii, 2014), but studies investigating the link between exposure to political
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR violence and radical shifts in individuals’ political attitudes are rare. One example of such a study, conducted in Israel in September 2003, found that terrorism exposure not only indirectly impacted PTSD symptoms and depressive symptoms through its impact on resource loss, but that PTSD subsequently influenced defensive attitudes, possibly in order to prevent future infliction of harm to the self (Hobfoll, Canetti-Nisim, & Johnson, 2006). Another study found that among both Jews and Arabs, those who expressed greater support for political violence at baseline increased their prejudicial attitudes toward the other over time. This is consistent with recent
findings
illustrating
how
violence
toward
the
outgroup
entails
infrahumanization and delegitimization, processes by which individuals negatively characterize the outgroup in order to minimize feelings of guilt that might otherwise mitigate violence (e.g. Bar-Tal, 1990). Hence, just as prejudice increases support for violence, violence must be justified by rejection of the outgroup. Studies examining the associations between exposure to political violence, PTSD and stress, and shifts in political attitudes have also considered the impact on inter-state attitudes, such as support for continuing the violence versus compromise. Gould and Klor (2010), for example, examined geographic variation in terror attacks in Israel from 1988 to 2006 and showed that local terror attacks caused Israelis – especially traditional right-wingers – to be more willing to grant territorial concessions to the Palestinians. However, terror attacks beyond a certain threshold caused Israelis to adopt a less-accommodating position. Such support for aggression toward outgroups and accompanying increases in authoritarianism are especially important because they contribute to a worldview that encourages retaliation and continues the cycle of violence (Solomon et al., 2000). These findings suggest that following exposure to political violence, stress and PTSD might function as key
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mechanisms underlying the adoption of defensive, even hostile, political attitudes. In fact, if the actions of others have been and continue to be threatening, and if that threat has had emotional consequences, then counter-aggression may be considered an adaptive coping strategy (Chemtob, Hamada, Roitblat, & Muraoka, 1994; Miller, Greif, & Smith, 2003), both on the intra- and inter-state level. Threat Perception So far we have discussed the effect of exposure to violence on mental health and its role in shaping radical shifts in political attitudes among civilians, especially those living under protracted conflict. An interesting question in this context is: What makes individuals with symptoms of PTSD more susceptible to developing strong political exclusionist attitudes? We suggest that one such mechanism is perception of threat – the appraisal of danger that the “other side,” or outgroup, poses to the lives or well-being of individuals or the group (Canetti-Nisim et al., 2009; Huddy et al., 2002). According to the shattered assumptions approach (Janoff-Bulman, 1992), following traumatic events people often face major challenges to their basic assumptions about the world, human nature, and themselves. Two assumptions that are most influenced by severe events are the assumption of personal invulnerability and the perception of the world as meaningful, predictable, and benign. In other words, traumatic events influence perceptions of existential security, which are conducive to tolerance of foreigners, openness to social change, and a pro-democratic political culture (Ingleheart, Moaddel, & Tessler, 2006). Therefore, the threat of existential insecurity – the feeling that survival cannot be taken for granted – can create a fertile ground for non-democratic attitudes and lead to increased ingroup support and outgroup negativity, such as exclusionism, political intolerance, and non-
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR democratic beliefs, including the denigration of civil rights (e.g., Canetti-Nisim et al., 2009) Empirical support for this notion was presented by Solomon, Iancu and Tyano (1997), who showed that exposure to a traumatic accident was implicated in challenging survivors’ beliefs about the benevolence of the world, subsequently necessitating the formation of correspondingly strong societal beliefs that help individuals cope with such psychological distress. Magzwaza (1999) showed that individuals who were traumatized by the South African apartheid government came to perceive the world as a more dangerous place. Such perceived threat gives expression to beliefs regarding how outgroup members interfere with the achievement of individual or group goals (e.g., security, financial welfare, or positive identity). Some studies have begun to examine the impact of direct exposure to political violence on perceptions of threat and resulting political attitudes during intergroup conflict (Bonanno & Jost 2006; Canetti et al., 2009; Laor, Yanay-Shani, Wolmer, & Khoury, 2010). In fact, perceived threat has long been considered the single best group-level predictor of prejudice (Quillian, 1995), exclusionism and intolerance4 (Brader, Valentino, & Suhay, 2008; Sullivan, Pierson, & Marcus, 1982). A recent study indicated that exposure to terrorism predicted perceived threat from Palestinian citizens of Israel, which in turn was associated with exclusionist attitudes toward these citizens. Another field study among Israeli settlers in Gaza, days prior to the Disengagement Plan (adopted by the Israeli government on June 6, 2004 and enacted in August 2005), showed that perceived threat had a direct impact on individuals’
4
Political intolerance is treated here as the support or willingness to denounce the basic political rights of individuals who belong to a defined outgroup in a particular society, thereby contradicting basic democratic values of equal rights and political opportunity.
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support for political exclusionism5 (Canetti, Halperin, Hobfoll, Shapira, & HirschHoefler, 2009). Recent findings from Northern Iraq further support this trend: across six areas of Kirkuk City with high and low intensity of political and inter-factional violence and amongst four ethno-religious groups, higher levels of outgroup exclusion were provoked as a result of increased threat (Canetti & Karpyuk, 2013). Similarly, collective angst resulting from extinction threat has been linked to the increased desire to engage in ingroup strengthening behaviors (Wohl, Branscombe, & Reysen, 2010). Several studies have examined the association between perceived threat and inter-societal political attitudes, revealing that perception of threat is positively correlated with political preferences supporting aggressive national and international security policies (e.g., Bonanno & Jost, 2006; Huddy, Feldman, & Weber, 2007). Ingleheart and colleagues (2006) found that the Iraqi public exhibits the highest level of xenophobia in any of the 85 societies for which data are available, together with extremely high levels of solidarity with one's own ethnic group. In another study using data from Northern Ireland and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, exposure to political violence reduced willingness to compromise as a result of heightened perceptions of threat (Canetti, Muldoon, Hirsch-Hoefler, & Lowe, 2012). These results are consistent with previous findings where greater exposure to political violence decreases the likelihood of supporting peace efforts (Canetti, Rapaport, Hirsch-Hoefler, & Hobfoll, 2014) and increases the desire for retaliatory aggression (Herrmann, Tetlock, & Viser, 1999). Overall, this research suggests that individuals commonly cope with threat by adopting hostile attitudes toward outgroups, attempting 5
In its broader interpretation, ethnic exclusionism—where the majority in a society wishes to exclude minorities—reflects a variety of social phenomena, including opposition to the granting of civil and political rights to resident and immigrant minority groups (e.g., Raijman & Semyonov, 2004).
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR to reduce their relative power, and supporting actions that potentially harm outgroup members in various ways (e.g., Duckitt & Fisher, 2003; Morrison & Ybarra, 2008; Pettigrew, 2003; Stephan & Renfro, 2002; Stephan & Stephan, 2000).
Physiological Markers Understanding the effect of cumulative stress and trauma on inflammation in affected populations, as well as examining how these processes alter the political perception of civilians, constitutes a new challenge. Identifying the roles played by physiological markers in the context of exposure and subsequent changes in political attitudes can produce a more complete accounting of the factors that lead to intolerance and hostility. In line with this, a few studies have begun to examine the role of C-Reactive Protein (CRP), a physiological marker of systemic inflammation, whereas others have focused on cortisol, a hormone that regulates the body’s response to stress. There is growing evidence that psychological and physiological reactions following exposure to political violence have a negative impact on immune system regulation, fueling inflammation (Graham, Robels, Kiecolt-Glaser, Malarkay, Bissell, & Glaser, 2006; Pace et al., 2010). Individuals living in conflict zones and who experience high levels of threat and fear of political violence exhibit elevated CRPlevels (Melamed, Shirom, Toker, Berliner, & Shapira, 2004). Similarly, Canetti et al. (2014) found that war and terrorism-associated PTSD is associated with immune system dysregulation, supporting previous studies showing that chronic fear of terror is associated with low-grade inflammation. This implies that prior exposure to trauma may result in increased sensitivity to later trauma (Post, Weiss, Smith, & McCann, 1997; see also McInnis, McQuaid, Matheson, & Anisman, this volume). Further,
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repeated episodes of both acute and chronic stress, ultimately culminating in chronic inflammation, can result in a variety of diseases (see Black, 2002). Because biological markers are known to play a crucial role in shaping political behavior (e.g., Hatemi & McDermott, 2012), we posit that physiological changes can, in turn, alter perception of threat following exposure and prompt aggressive political attitudes toward the outgroup. Canetti et al. (2012) hypothesized that inflammation might be associated with a radical shift in political attitudes among affected citizens. In order to test this idea, the research was conducted during a period in which frequent missile and rocket attacks occurred, with the interviews with respondents conducted amidst the sound of sirens. This unique setting revealed that Jewish Israelis residing within the range of rockets from Gaza and who were personally exposed to them exhibited elevated CRP-levels, as well as higher levels of perception of threat. These higher levels of threat perception, in turn, were associated with support for an aggressive foreign policy toward the Palestinians and significantly greater support for violence against them. Overall, it seems that hardening of political views might constitute a mechanism for coping with physiological stress by reducing the perceived likelihood of additional exposure to violence. In the long run, however, such inflammation can potentially contribute to disease, pain, and discomfort, further exacerbating the stress process (Appels, Bär, Bär, Bruggeman, & deBaets, 2000). Furthermore, such physiological changes should be considered an important mechanism by which exposure to violence triggers political changes in individuals (Canetti, Hall, Rapaport, & Wayne, 2013). Thus far we have focused on political violence that takes place in major world conflict settings, and terrorism in particular. In today’s world, however, cyber attacks are becoming increasingly common. In the worst cases, they can disable critical
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR infrastructures directly or indirectly – for example, disrupt air and rail transportation or poison water supplies - or target individuals. In these cases, the civilian population will most likely suffer fear, anxiety, loss of control and mistrust. Some will lose medical or legal records, confidential information, email communications, or social networks. Others will find their identity or assets stolen, or face physical threats from unknown assailants. Lives and businesses might be radically disrupted. A recent study (Canetti, Gross, & Waismel-Manor, 2014) examined the physiological and psychological effects of such potential events by experimentally exposing individuals to simulated cyber attacks. Not only did exposure to a cyber attack significantly decrease overall well-being and lead to increased stress and anxiety, but participants also exhibited higher levels of cortisol, a clear physiological indicator of elevated stress. Further, individuals exposed to the simulated cyber attack more strongly endorsed radical cyber-policies, suggesting that cyberattacks – and associated physiological and psychological reactions - can impinge upon and influence political attitudes. Chronic stress following exposure to cyber attacks may thus underlie the common and often co-occurring sequelae of exposure to political violence, such as PTSD, depression, and psychological distress, which play an important role in enacting shifts in political attitudes. While people may not necessarily be aware of the forces and conditions that underlie their experiences, assessing the role of physiological markers fills a pressing need for objective data concerning changes in political attitudes. Knowledge of these physiological correlates can thus enhance our understanding of both treatment and policies, and provide a potentially invaluable tool for those tasked with addressing stress-induced illnesses following exposure to violence.
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Emotions Besides perceived threat, psychological and physiological stress, emotions are often reflections of experienced trauma, grief, and other hardships, and can play an important role in changing social and political attitudes following exposure to political violence (de Rivera, 1992; Halperin, Canetti, & Kimhi, 2012). More than a decade ago, Chemtob and his colleagues (1997), who studied psychological reactions of combat veterans, identified a sequence of experiences that led individuals who were exposed to horrifying events to display extreme forms of negative affect toward individuals. Humiliation, for example, is an important emotion that is present in many intergroup conflicts – but does it prompt support for violence or quell it? Longo, Canetti and Hite-Rubin (2014) recently suggested that humiliation – over and above more common explanations such as economic loss or threats of violence – might serve as an important emotion mechanism that shapes political attitudes following exposure to conflict. For many Palestinians, crossing checkpoints is a sad and disturbing everyday reality. In a novel study, the authors took advantage of an external political decision to “ease” border controls between Israel and the West Bank, allowing them to compare attitudes over time among local Palestinians near a checkpoint that was eliminated and near a very similar checkpoint that remained in place. They found that Palestinians who were subjected to checkpoint easement were significantly less likely to support violence against Israel, or the militant Islamist group Hamas over the secular-nationalist Fatah. These findings suggest that checkpoints increase tendencies to support violent action, rather than reduce them.6 Further the data strongly suggest that checkpoints make Palestinians more likely to 6
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/25/israeli-checkpoints-fuel-supportfor-violence/
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR support violence because of the extended humiliation they involve. Palestinians who felt humiliated at checkpoints were more likely to support violence against Israel than, for example, those who expressed fear or had suffered financial loss. Together, these findings have considerable practical significance, indicating that various aspects of prolonged conflict, such as nonviolent repression, lead to important changes in political attitudes, and thus have relevance for future peace negotiations. Identity of the Perpetrator Real world events in Gaza were the perfect laboratory to test hypotheses concerning yet another mechanism underlying changes in the instigation of militancy, hostility, and resentment following individual exposure to political violence: identity of the perpetrator. Following the elections in 2006 (and extending well into 2008) there were internal clashes between the primarily secular, nationalist Fatah and Islamic radical Hamas in Gaza. In order to evaluate the psychological and political effects of inter-factional violence between Hamas and Fatah and attacks committed by Israel - we conducted a series of surveys in 2007 and 2008 using Palestinian participants from Gaza. In addition to questions on political preferences, emotional reactions, and mental health, we asked participants to report the extent of exposure to violence (e.g., whether they witnessed attacks, lost a significant other, or were injured themselves) during the past year, as well as specifying the source of violence. Out of 439 participants in Gaza, 316 reported exposure to violence as follows: 59 reported exposure to Israeli fire, 78 to Palestinian fire, and 179 to both. When comparing these three groups based on the source of violence (committed by Israel, Palestinians, or both), significant differences were obtained in psychological distress, with Palestinians exposed to internal violence demonstrating the highest levels of PTSD. In addition, there were clear differences in attitudes towards war and violence: those
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Palestinians in Gaza exposed to Israeli violence exhibited the lowest levels of support for militant policies towards Israel (Canetti, First, Kedem, & Tabachnik, 2014).While this study is still in its nascence, the results suggest that the identity of the perpetrator has a psychological and political impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Further, it illustrates the need to consider a broader variety of psychological mechanisms that drive changes in political attitudes following exposure to violence. Lyall et al. (2011) also suggest that the actions taken by combatants are interpreted differently depending on who commits them, yet their results point in another direction. Using evidence from Afghanistan, they found that perpetrators who engage in the same behaviors are treated differently depending on whether they are members of the ingroup or outgroup. Harm inflicted by one’s own group or co-ethnics (here, the Taliban) was generally ignored, while harm inflicted by the outgroup (International Security Assistance Force) increased antipathy and support for militant action. Overall, identity of the perpetrator appears to be a powerful mechanism in shaping political attitudes following exposure to violence, and as such, deserves further research attention.
Changes Toward Reconciliation: The Parents Circle–Families Forum In contrast to the studies presented so far, some have argued that exposure to violence may sometimes lead to a shift towards constructive, reconciliatory attitudes. Since agreements between policymakers are often insufficient for reconciliation and compromise to occur – as seen in Northern Ireland (Arthur, 1999) and Israel-Palestine (e.g., Maoz, 2000) –those accompanied by people-to-people dynamics of social and psychological change may gain more support (e.g., Bar-Tal, 2013; Zartman, 1989). This is in line with findings showing that the shared experience of injustice – so-
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR called co-victimization – can lead to increased political solidarity and collective action and efforts to achieve social change (Subasic, Schmitt, & Reynolds, 2011). In the Israeli–Palestinian arena, various types of people-to-people activities became quite common during periods of progress in the peace process (Endresen & Gilen, 2000). Although many organizations halted or reduced their activities after the violent outbreak in the second half of 2000 (e.g., Chaitin, Obeidi, Adwan, & Bar-On, 2004), some programs continue to be active. One example is the so-called Parents Circle–Families Forum (PCFF), consisting of some 300 Israelis and 300 Palestinians who lost their loved ones as a result of the ongoing conflict. Originally created in 1995 (then named the Israeli–Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum), the PCFF is a cross-community peacebuilding project. It is one of few joint people-to-people programs still functioning. Its members have all lost a first-degree relative to the violence in the Middle East, and have chosen to convert their feelings of anger and revenge, helplessness and despair, into hope and empathy in order to prevent other families from experiencing similar pain. Although coming together despite a major sense of vulnerability about revealing their personal pain (Furman, 2013), they have initiated several innovative and successful peacebuilding programs including a telephone service that has facilitated over one million one-onone conversations between Israelis and Palestinians who did not know each other, a school speaker program that has conducted thousands of presentations and discussions in Israeli and Palestinian schools, and community lectures around the world. In an empirical study, Weder, Garcia-Neto and Canetti (2010) showed that engaging in a forum like the PCFF leads to reconciliatory shifts in political attitudes due to the fostering of successful coping with grievances. Members of the PCFF
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reported fewer prolonged grief disorder (PGD) symptoms compared to those who also lost their loved ones but were not members of the PCFF. Further, positive attitudes toward peace, being hopeful about the future, and the ability to forgive the opposing group can be considered protective factors against PGD, and people-to-people peacebuilding initiatives, such as the PCFF, reinforce these attitudes. These findings show that the effects of exposure to violence are – albeit only partially – malleable, and can be tackled with intensive effort. Notwithstanding processes of peacebuilding aimed at engaging people in changing entrenched and polarizing attitudes on both sides of the conflict, waves of recurring heightened violence take their psychological and political toll. Despite this positive evidence, many ordinary civilians are victims of their own refusal to break the cycle of violence, and are increasingly becoming resistant to peacebuilding, reconciliation, and compromise.
Conclusions Political violence has many effects which have only begun to be investigated. There is growing interest in understanding the psychological and political consequences of prolonged exposure to violence, its resulting hardships, and individual malleability and resilience. In this chapter, we reviewed interdisciplinary studies conducted in conflict-ridden societies to demonstrate how exposure to political conflict and violence, and individual-level grievances, are important determinants of attitude change. Looking specifically at studies in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, where civilians have suffered from protracted conflict and recurring violent escalations for many decades, we identify the psychological mechanisms – such as stress, PTSD, and threat perception - that influence individual changes
EXPOSURE TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR characterized by a rightward shift on the political spectrum. As we have illustrated, people are changed by the context in which they live. Together, these points constitute an important contribution to a political science literature centered almost exclusively on macro- and community-level analyses of exposure, or focused on singular terrorist attacks. Most importantly, the findings presented in this chapter extend beyond the violent escalations in Israel, to any community suffering from forms of prolonged political violence, such as high crime rates, insecurity, and political instability. The focus on prolonged, individual exposure opens up new venues for the study of the malleability of political attitudes and allows us to assess the value of certain initiatives – such as the Parents Circle Families Forum – in the context of resilience. Indeed, this example powerfully illustrates how intergroup contact and other conditions can serve as protective factors for those dealing with exposure to repeated war-related trauma, leading to changes in the direction of pro-reconciliation. In societies suffering from protracted conflict, recurring waves of political violence and threat thereof, the promotion of the physical and emotional well-being of those living in the area is of crucial importance. While these activities cannot substitute for the official process of negotiation toward conflict resolution, such organizations can provide their members with a significantly brighter outlook on life without the destructive forces of radicalism, as well as supplying efficient coping strategies for personal loss and continuing threat. Such interventions do this by building new groups (and identities) based on integrative ties, and establishing relationships and shared interests between members of opposing groups. There is little question that prolonged exposure to violence leads to harms in the lives of the affected, but it is noteworthy that this exposure might also be a
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detriment to national and regional security by making civilians more likely to support violence and radicalism, rather than diplomatic negotiation. Actions designed to reduce perceived threat, stress, and negative emotions can be important for promoting willingness to compromise in situations of intractable political violence, aiding reconciliation and rapprochement, thereby offering policymakers routes to break the self-perpetuating cycle of violence and retribution. Further, these findings may have important health-care policy implications for primary care physicians, nurses and community mental health professionals with regard to conflict resolution and stress management interventions (Riba & Reches, 2002; Stephenson, 2001). Above all, this chapter reaffirms the need for individual and group-based psychological approaches to the study - and resolution - of political conflict, and highlights the role played by exposure to political conflict as an attitudinal barrier to peace. While psychological factors alone, without corollary economic improvements to civilians’ daily lives, are likely to be insufficient to maintain long-term gains, decreasing violence directed at civilians remains absolutely essential.
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