Foreign Policy Attitudes toward Islamic Actors: An Experimental Approach

This article examines how Western foreign policy opinion reacts to the perceived Islamic character of foreign actors. Studies show that the target actor’s dominant religion is a key ingredient in foreign policy opinion: Western audiences react more hostilely to “Muslim” than “Christian” targets. Yet, actors differ not only in which world religion they belong to but also how that religion is politicized by themselves and by others. We argue that Islam can be politicized in three major ways—via Islamic rhetoric, policies, and labels—that shape foreign policy attitudes. To examine our claims, we field a survey experiment in which we attach common Islamic rhetoric (“Allahu Akbar”), policies (“Shari’a law”), and/or labels (“Islamist”) to a foreign actor in the context of the Syrian civil conflict. We find that these cues strongly harm attitudes toward the actor, and the results vary widely by type. Indeed, the Shari’a policy cue does the most damage to attitudes, emotions, and preferences toward the actor. Moreover, the Islamic cues reinforce each other in fueling these fearful reactions and are particularly potent on conservative citizens. These results paint a richer picture of how out-group religious cues influence foreign policy attitudes.