Collaborative Research: Experimental Research on Religious Scripture and Political Behavior in the Muslim World

该奖项满足司B，标题五，第。2013年综合和进一步持续拨款法案（P.L.）113-6，2013年3月26日颁布）。这个项目探讨了伊斯兰教如何塑造穆斯林的政治态度和行为。学者和政策制定者长期以来一直认为，伊斯兰教对穆斯林的思想和行为方式的影响是强大的。这不仅反映在穆斯林占多数的社会的社会保守主义上，也反映在伊斯兰政党（如埃及的穆斯林兄弟会、突尼斯的复兴党、印度尼西亚的繁荣正义党或摩洛哥的正义与发展党）经常获得大量选票的事实上。然而，这种认为宗教比其他类型的意识形态对穆斯林有更大的吸引力的信念从未经过任何科学检验。该项目包括在摩洛哥和印度尼西亚进行的一系列实验，这些实验将探讨穆斯林是否对使用宗教语言和符号的政治呼吁比对非宗教语言和符号的政治呼吁更敏感。该项目包括两项具有全国代表性的调查，这些调查使测试能够确定接触基于宗教的支持或反对特定政策的实验对象是否比接触基于非宗教的论点的实验对象更有可能受到影响。这将允许关键问题的探索：宗教修辞的使用是否赋予伊斯兰神职人员领导人和伊斯兰政党与他们的世俗竞争对手相比的内在优势，以及穆斯林对宗教诉求的接受程度是否因政策领域而异。该项目将探讨伊斯兰教对穆斯林在与美国合作、性别平等、暴力或与非穆斯林关系等问题上的态度是否比对经济或健康、福利和税收政策的态度更有影响力。最后，该项目将探讨社会因素如何影响个人对宗教言论的接受程度：弱势群体，如妇女、年轻人、失业者和城市贫民窟居民，是否比其他人更容易受到伊斯兰政治言论的影响？该项目不仅将增加对伊斯兰教和政治的理解，而且还将产生对激进伊斯兰主义挑战的见解。智力价值：这项研究的重要性是双重的。首先，它推进了政治学，社会学和人类学关于宗教如何驱动穆斯林公民及其政治领导人的言论，思想和行动的知识。考虑到政治伊斯兰在穆斯林世界的持续影响力，伊斯兰主义者与埃及和突尼斯等国的对手之间日益激烈的斗争，以及该地区大部分反美主义的宗教理由，这个问题具有紧迫的学术和政策意义。其次，该项目有可能帮助改变宗教和政治的研究，并通过展示科学的实验方法如何精确地研究宗教在塑造行为中的作用来催化进一步的研究。更广泛的影响：该项目有相当大的潜力，以造福社会在两个方面。首先，探索宗教言论的影响和限制有助于促进穆斯林世界新民主国家的政治多元化，使世俗和自由政党能够学习如何与那些使用宗教言论的政党进行有效竞争。其次，该项目对美国的国家安全具有重要影响。通过研究宗教言论对穆斯林心灵和思想的影响，我们可以为打击极端主义，不自由和反美言论的努力做出贡献，这些言论往往以宗教为基础。除了制作学术产品外，研究所还计划向政策制定者和公众传播这项研究的结果。

This award satisfies Division B, Title V, Sec. 543 of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6, enacted on March 26, 2013). This project explores how Islam shapes the political attitudes and behavior of Muslims. Scholars and policymakers have long argued that Islam's influence on the way Muslims think and act is powerful. This is reflected not just in the social conservatism of Muslim-majority societies, but also in the fact that Islamist parties, such as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Tunisia's Ennahdha Party, Indonesia's Party of Prosperous Justice, or Morocco's Party of Justice and Development, routinely earn large vote shares. However, this belief that religion exerts a stronger pull than other types of ideologies on Muslims has never been put to any kind of scientific test. The project includes a series of experiments in Morocco and Indonesia that will explore whether Muslims are more responsive to political appeals using religious language and symbols than they are to ones made in non-religious terms. The project includes two nationally-representative surveys that enable tests to determine whether experimental subjects who are exposed to religiously-based arguments for or against particular policies are more likely to be influenced than those who are exposed to non-religiously based arguments. This will permit the exploration of critical questions: whether the use of religious rhetoric endows Islamic clerical leaders and Islamist parties with a built-in advantage over their secular rivals, and whether Muslim receptivity to religious appeals varies by policy domain. The project will ask whether Islam has a more potent influence on Muslims' attitudes toward such matters as cooperation with the United States, gender equality, violence, or relations with non-Muslims than it does on their attitudes toward the economy or policies on health, welfare, and taxation. And finally, the project will address how social factors affect individual receptivity to religious rhetoric: Are vulnerable populations, such as women, the young, the unemployed, and inhabitants of urban slums more likely than others to be influenced by Islamist political speech? The project will not only add to the understanding of Islam and politics, but will also yield insights into the challenge of radical Islamism.Intellectual Merit: The importance of this research is twofold. First, it advances knowledge in political science, sociology, and anthropology about how religion drives the words, thoughts, and actions of Muslims citizens and their political leaders. Given the continued potency of political Islam in the Muslim world, the increasingly violent struggles between Islamists and their rivals in such countries as Egypt and Tunisia, and the religious justifications that undergird much of the region's anti-Americanism, this question is of urgent scholarly and policy interest. Second, the project has the potential to help transform the study of religion and politics and catalyze further research by demonstrating how scientific, experimental methods can be bring precision to the study of religion's role in shaping behavior. Broader Impacts: The project has considerable potential to benefit society in two ways. First, exploring the effects and limits of religious rhetoric can help to promote political pluralism in the new democracies of the Muslim world, by enabling secular and liberal political parties to learn how to compete effectively with those who deploy religious rhetoric. Second, the project has important implications for the national security of the United States. By studying the impact of religious rhetoric on Muslim hearts and minds, we can contribute to efforts to counter the extremist, illiberal, and anti-American discourses that are so often grounded in religion. In addition to generating academic products, the PIs plan to disseminate the findings of this research to policy and public audiences.