The Attitudinal Foundations of Extremism: Evidence from Mindanao, Philippines

• In Event: Political Violence in Southeast Asia: Origins and Consequences in Daily Politics

Abstract

In 2017, militants claiming allegiance to the Islamic State shocked the world by placing the city of Marawi, in the southern Philippines, under siege for five months. While the region has experienced decades of sporadic anti-state violence between its Muslim majority and the predominantly Catholic state, the conflicts have historically been nationalist rather than religious. The Marawi siege and other recent bouts of violence by Islamist extremists elsewhere in the region are distinct in that they are fueled by religious extremism and fundamentalist ideology.

This paper explores the ideological foundations of violent extremism in the southern Philippines using an original survey of 1,600 individuals on the island of Mindanao. I analyze the role of several commonly-theorized drivers of extremism, including economic (dis)satisfaction and social marginalization. Consistent with theories of economic deprivation, respondents who are less economically satisfied express greater opposition to democracy, prefer a greater role of religious clerics and government, and are more willing to declare Muslims who do not worship correctly to be apostates (“takfir”), a key justification used by violent extremists.

Given the importance of emigration for the Filipino economy, and existing research on “social remittances” which suggests that migrants may transmit attitudes and behaviors back to their home communities, I focus in particular on the role of experiences abroad in shaping Filipinos’ attitudes about religion, politics, and violence. I find that migration and exposure to the Middle East are closely related to social and political attitudes, but not in the way that existing research suggests. I find evidence that people select into emigration based on their social attitudes: prospective emigrants express attitudes that are significantly more patriarchal, for example that education is more important for men than for women, are more likely to subscribe to takfir, and are more likely to say that democracy is incompatible with their society. However, actually living abroad appears to moderate these attitudes; returned migrants are significantly less supportive of these views. Thus, migration is actually contributing to a moderation of extremist and anti-democratic values in Mindanao.

Author

• Matthew Nanes, Saint Louis University