Joshua R. Gubler

Horizontal Inequality, Crosscutting Cleavages, and Civil War

In this article, the authors bring together research on horizontal inequality, geographic dispersion of ethnic groups and crosscutting cleavages to present a more holistic theory of ethnic structure and civil war onset. The authors argue that rebel leaders are thwarted in their mobilization efforts in highly crosscutting societies due to a lower probability of potential combatants identifying with nationalist goals, decreased ability to exert social control, and diminished in-group communication. Using cross-national data from over 100 countries, the authors provide evidence that civil war onset is an average of nearly twelve times less probable in societies where ethnicity is crosscut by socioeconomic class, geographic region, and religion.

Does the State Promote Communal Violence for Electoral Reasons

It has often been alleged, most recently in the recommendations of Indias National Advisory Council (NAC), that the Indian state promotes, or is complicit in, Hindu-Muslim violence for political or electoral reasons. But the evidence for the claim has historically been sketchy. In StevenWilkinsons work, Votes and Violence, the argument is that the evidence supporting state complicity is systematic.We examine this argument and find it to be fundamentally flawed.

Violent Rhetoric in Protracted Group Conflicts Experimental Evidence from Israel and India

How do messages from political elites interact with individual traits of citizens to spur intergroup aggression? Building on research in social psychology, we expect that in places of protracted conflict, violent rhetoric from elites will be enough to mobilize antagonism toward an outgroup, especially among those who are generally less apt to be hostile toward the outgroup. We present results from two large survey experiments, the first conducted with young Jewish-Israeli adults across Israel and the second with a nationally diverse sample of adults in India. The results show that mild “fighting” words (e.g. “battle,” “fight”), combined with a reference to the outgroup, provoke significantly greater support for policies that harm the outgroup among some citizens. This effect is largest among individuals low in outgroup prejudice and low in aggressive personality traits, people who are usually less inclined to support policies that hurt the outgroup. Effects of violent rhetoric persist even with policies and rhetoric to help the outgroup. This work highlights the importance of considering both individual traits and contextual factors together to understand their full impact in the study of intergroup conflict.

Toward Conflict or Compromise? How Violent Metaphors Polarize Partisan Issue Attitudes

We know much about how opinion leaders drive mass partisan polarization with position-taking cues but little on how different message types polarize citizens, and who responds most to those messages attributes. This article contributes new insights by investigating how exposure to common violent metaphors interacts with audience personality traits to polarize partisans on issues. Building from research on conflict orientations, we theorize that aggressive rhetoric primes aggression in aggressive partisans, motivating greater intransigence on party positions. As a consequence, aggressive partisans are pulled further apart on issues, thereby reducing prospects for compromise. We find support for our predictions in two large nationally diverse survey experiments conducted in very different political contexts. Our results demonstrate the subtle power of aggression in public opinion and highlight the important moderating role of individual differences in the communication of partisan conflict.