Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict

Jeremy Ginges; Scott Atran; Douglas Medin; Khalil Shikaki

doi:10.1073/pnas.0701768104

New Research In

Contributed by Douglas Medin, March 1, 2007 (received for review November 1, 2006)

Abstract

We report a series of experiments carried out with Palestinian and Israeli participants showing that violent opposition to compromise over issues considered sacred is (i) increased by offering material incentives to compromise but (ii) decreased when the adversary makes symbolic compromises over their own sacred values. These results demonstrate some of the unique properties of reasoning and decision-making over sacred values. We show that the use of material incentives to promote the peaceful resolution of political and cultural conflicts may backfire when adversaries treat contested issues as sacred values.

Footnotes

^†To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: medin{at}northwestern.edu or gingesj{at}newschool.edu
Author contributions: J.G., S.A., D.M., and K.S. designed research; J.G. and K.S. performed research; J.G., S.A., D.M., and K.S. analyzed data; and J.G., S.A., D.M., and K.S. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0701768104/DC1.
↵ †† For example, in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Hamas gained a narrow victory (44%) over the secular-nationalist party Fateh (41%) in the popular vote, which translated into a clear majority (57%) of parliamentary seats. Our exit poll indicates that an upswing in support for Hamas from religious voters who strongly opposed the peace process and tend to be more supportive of violence was crucial to this result. See “PSR's Exit Poll Results on the Election Day of the Second Palestinian Parliament”; available at http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/exitplcfulljan06e.html#religiousity.
↵ ‡‡ To illustrate, Isaac Ben Israel, a former Israeli Air Force Major General who currently heads his country's space agency, stated in an interview on June 4, 2006: “Israel recognizes that the [Hamas-led] Palestinian government is still completely focused on what it considers to be its essential principles … For Hamas, a refusal to utter the simple words ‘We recognize Israel's right to exist' is clearly an essential part of their core values. Why else would they suffer the international boycott… and let their own government workers go without pay, their people go hungry, and their leaders risk assassination?” Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas leader and spokesman for the Palestinian government, stated in an interview on June 20, 2006: “In principle we have no problem with a Palestinian state encompassing all of our lands within the 1967 borders, with perhaps minor modifications on a dunam for dunam basis [10 dunams = 1 hectare]. But let Israel apologize for our tragedy in 1948, and then we can talk about negotiating over our right of return to historic Palestine.” From the other side, Ben Israel, drove home the point saying, “when we feel Hamas has recognized our right to exist as a Jewish state, then we can deal.” In rational-choice models of decision-making, that something as intangible as an apology should stand in the way of peace does not readily compute.
© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA