This session of the Political Behaviour Colloquium features a presentation by EUI Researcher Madiha Z Sadiq.
How does a nation’s support for one side of a conflict shift dramatically to the other? This paper examines the rapid shift in Norwegian public opinion between 1978 and 1980, from strong pro-Israel sentiment to widespread criticism of Israel’s actions in the occupied territories.
We propose a bottom-up explanation of opinion change: the diffusion of firsthand, counter-narrative information through trusted in-group members who—by virtue of their mobility—are informationally distinct from their peers. Specifically, we focus on Norwegian UNIFIL peacekeepers returning from Lebanon after 1978 who, through their direct exposure to the conflict and continued embeddedness in local communities, served as informational brokers.
Combining cross-sectional data on public opinion with soldier records and original survey data, we exploit variation in returnee intensity to show that regions receiving more returnees experienced sharper declines in pro-Israel sentiment. The findings demonstrate how mobility can drive attitudinal change by introducing new, firsthand information into otherwise homogeneous networks through trusted in-group members.
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