Understanding support for islamist militancy in Pakistan

International Security

Volumn 34, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 79-118

  Shapiro, Jacob N ^a   Christine Fair, C ^b  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77449087524     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: 15314804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/isec.2010.34.3.79     Document Type: Article

References (136)

1. Pakistan precipitated the first Indo-Pakistani War (1947-48) a few weeks after independence by launching tribal lashkar (militia) fromWaziristan in an effort to wrest Kashmir from India. Pakistan has supported various insurgent cells in Kashmir from 1947 to the present. With the security provided by its covert nuclearization, Pakistan expanded its "jihad" to the rest of India in the late 1980s. After overt nuclearizaton in 1998, Pakistan became even more aggressive about supporting asymmetric actions within India.
2. See, for example, Ashley J. Tellis, C. Christine Fair, and Jamison Jo Medby, "Limited Conflicts under the Nuclear Umbrella-Indian and Pakistani Lessons from the Kargil Crisis" (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001)
3. Praveen Swami, India, Pakistan, and the Secret Jihad: The Covert War in Kashmir, 1947-2004 (New York: Routledge, 2007)
4. S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007).
5. Hillary R. Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, "New Beginnings: Foreign Policy Priorities in the Obama Administration," 111th Cong., 1st sess., April 22, 2009.
6. See Chairman Howard Berman, opening statement at hearing, "From Strategy to Implementation: The Future of the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship," U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, 111th Cong., 1st sess., May 5, 2009.
7. U.S. House of Representatives, "Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009," H.R. 1886, 111th Cong., 1st sess., April 2009. The terms of the bill were included in U.S. Senate, "Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009," S. 1707, 111th Cong., 1st sess., passed by the U.S. House and Senate in September 2009.
8. Richard C. Holbrooke, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Department of State, testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, 111th Cong., 1st sess., May 5, 2009.
9. "Donors Pledge $5bn for Pakistan," BBC News, April 17, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8003557.stm.
10. See also Robert A. Wood, Office of the Spokesperson, "U.S. Pledges $1 Billion for Pakistan at Tokyo Donors' Conference: Aid to Support Broader U.S. Commitment to the Pakistani People," U.S. Department of State, April 17, 2009, http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2009/April/20090417123036xjsnommis5.550784e-02.html.
11. These arguments are reflected in both Pakistani and Western discourse. On the Pakistani side, see "Marshall Plan-Style Aid Drive Needed for Pakistan: Zardari," Daily Times (Islamabad), April 17, 2009. On the Western side, see the 9/11 Commission's claim that "Pakistan's endemic poverty, widespread corruption, and often ineffective government create opportunities for Islamist recruitment. Poor education is a particular concern." National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York:W.W. Norton, 2004), p. 367. Amore nuanced argument is that Pakistan's derelict public schools and poverty compel Pakistani families to send their children to the madrassas (religious schools), which provide recruits for Pakistan's jihadi groups.
12. Jessica Stern, "Pakistan's Jihad Culture," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 79, No. 6 (November/December 2000), pp. 115-126.
13. For an alternative view see Tariq Rahman, "Madrassas: Religion, Poverty, and the Potential for Violence in Pakistan," Islamabad Policy Research Institute, Vol. 5. No. 1 (Winter 2005), http://www.ipripak.org/journal/winter2005/madrassas.shtml.
14. In recent years, policymakers and commentators have demurred from articulating these views publicly owing to increased political sensitivity. In private, however, these concerns persist, and they animate many meetings convened by the U.S. and U.K. governments attended by the authors as well as numerous author interactions with British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian, and U.S. intelligence officials, policymakers, and politicians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For a thoughtful discussion of these political concerns
15. see Toni Johnson, "Sharia and Militancy," Backgrounder (Washington, D.C.: Council on Foreign Relations, April 22, 2009), http://www.cfr.org/publication/19155/sharia_and_militancy.html.
16. See also Shadi Hamid, "Resolving America's Islamist Dilemma: Lessons from South and South East Asia" (Washington, D.C.: Century Foundation, 2008), http://www.tcf.org/publications/internationalaffairs/Hamid.pdf.
17. This belief, in turn, drives concerns about the potential role of Islamist parties in expanding militancy
18. The United States Agency for International Development's (USAID's) $750 million Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) development plan, for example, was predicated on the hypothesis that insurgency and terrorism in the FATA is driven by poverty, lack of education, and unemployment. See United States Agency for International Development, "USAID/Pakistan Interim Strategic Plan, May 2003-September 2006" (Islamabad: USAID, May 2003), http://www.docstoc .com/docs/673677/USAID-Pakistan-Interim-Strategic-Plan. The plan explicitly argues that "economic growth means more jobs, which can accelerate economic recovery and thwart those who would recruit the unemployed for terrorism."
19. The Pew Research Center and the International Republican Institute (IRI) conduct surveys that ask general questions about militancy, such as, "Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: the Taliban and Al-Qaeda operating in Pakistan is a serious problem?" Neither organization analyzes its data to identify sources of subnational variation, and they do not appear to collect data on the economic, social, and ideational variables required for such an analysis. See International Republican Institute, "IRI Pakistan Index," January 19-29, 2008, http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/pdfs/2008%20February%2011%20IRI%20Pakistan%20Index,%20January%2019-29,%202008.pdf.
20. Presumably, policy-oriented organizations field such surveys because there is an implicit assumption that demand for militancy (e.g., support) correlates in some straightforward way with the supply of violence. There is little evidence to support this assumption, however. Surveys can cast little light on how to reduce violence without more sophisticated data collection and analysis.
21. For a nuanced summary of such concerns, see International Crisis Group, "Elections, Democracy, and Stability in Pakistan," Asia Report, No. 137 (Brussels: International Crisis Group, July 2007).
22. The Islamist parties barely broke double digits of the popular vote in the 2002 elections when they faced exceptionally favorable circumstances. International Crisis Group, "Pakistan: The Mullahs and the Military," Asia Report, No. 49 (Brussels: International Crisis Group, March 2003). See also Rafiq Dossani and Henry S. Rowen, "Introduction," in Dossani and Rowen, eds., Prospects for Peace in South Asia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005), p. 13.
23. See International Republican Institute, "IRI Releases Survey of Pakistan Public Opinion," news release, May 11, 2009, http://www.iri.org/newsreleases/2009-05-11-Pakistan.asp.
24. Since 2002 the Pew Global Attitudes Survey has repeatedly asked whether respondents in Muslim countries felt that suicide bombing could be justified "to defend Islam from its enemies." Recent research shows that views about suicide attacks depend heavily on the identities of the attackers and the attacked. It is not obvious how to interpret responses to general questions such as Pew's, given that the strategic context of such attacks is so important. C. Christine Fair and Stephen M. Shellman, "Determinants of Popular Support for Iran's Nuclear Program: Insights from a Nationally Representative Survey," Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 29, No. 3 (December 2008), pp. 538-558.
25. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for pushing us to clarify this point and have relied on his/her excellent framing of the argument
26. In ongoing work, we employ a nationally representative survey that uses embedded experiments to study the extent to which strategically relevant information influences support for different groups and whether these effects depend on personal religiosity or economic circumstances
27. For evidence that poverty and terrorism do not drive individuals to become terrorists, see Alan B. Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007). For the argument that because terrorist organizations screen their operatives, Krueger's findings can be consistent with a positive relationship between poverty and the overall production of terror
28. see Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, "The Quality of Terror," American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 49, No. 3 (July 2005), pp. 515-530.
29. This distinction is important. Although there is a robust literature on the characteristics of militants, there are few studies of the determinants of support for militancy. Three notable exceptions are M. Najeeb Shafiq and Abdulkader H. Sinno, "Education, Income, and Support for Suicide Bombings: Evidence from Six Muslim Countries," SSRN Working Paper, July 2008
30. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, "Correlates of Public Support for Terrorism in the MuslimWorld," USIPWorking Paper (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, May 2007)
31. C. Christine Fair and Bryan Shepherd, "Research Note: Who Supports Terrorism? Insights from Fourteen Muslim Countries," Studies in Con(ict and Terrorism, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January/February 2006), pp. 51-74. There have been no robust studies of the supply of terrorism in Pakistan and no comprehensive data collection on the attributes of Pakistani militants. Existing studies of the attributes of Pakistani militants are purely anecdotal.
32. This section draws from author fieldwork in Pakistan from 2002 to 2009. See C. Christine Fair, "Who Are Pakistan's Militants and Their Families?" Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 20, No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 49-65.
33. See also Muhammad Amir Rana, The A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan, trans. Saba Ansari (Lahore: Mashal, 2004). For an excellent synthesis of the sprawling Pakistani literature on the varied militant groups based from the country
34. see Nicholas Howenstein, "The Jihadi Terrain in Pakistan: An Introduction to the Sunni Jihadi Groups in Pakistan and Kashmir," Research Report No. 1 (Bradford, U.K.: Pakistan Studies Research Unit, February 5, 2008), http://spaces.brad.ac.uk:8080/download/attachments/748/resrep1.pdf.
35. Author fieldwork in Pakistan since 2002. Most recently, the authors trained six teams of survey enumerators from across the country for a national sample of Pakistanis in April 2009.
36. See Zahid Hussain, "Al-Qaeda's New Face," Newsline (Karachi), August 2004
37. See "Mingora Attack," Post (Islamabad), March 3, 2007
38. See WorldPublicOpinion.org, "Public Opinion in the Islamic World on Terrorism, al Qaeda, and U.S. Policies" (Washington, D.C.: PIPA, February 25, 2009), http://www.worldpublicopinion .org/pipa/pdf/feb09/STARTII_Feb09_rpt.pdf. See also WorldPublicOpinion.org, "Muslim Public Opinion on U.S. Policy, Attacks on Civilians, and al-Qa'ida" (Washington D.C.: PIPA, April 24, 2007), http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/apr07/START_Apr07_rpt.pdf.
39. Hamid's subsequent clarifications suggest he meant to say those countries "are believed to be behind" the attacks. "U.S. Concerned over Hamid's Remarks," Daily Times (Lahore), March 3, 2008.
40. Some analysts view the Taliban as a Pashtun nationalist movement and so do not agree with the distinction Pakistanis tend to make between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, "No Sign until the Burst of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier," International Security, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Spring 2008), pp. 41-77.
41. Hassan Abbas, "A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan," CTC Sentinel, Vol. 1, No. 2 (January 2008), pp. 1-4
42. Rahimullah Yusufzai, "The Impact of Pashtun Tribal Differences on the Pakistani Taliban," Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 6, No. 3 (February 2008)
43. C. Christine Fair, "U.S.-Pakistan Relations: Assassination, Instability, and the Future of U.S. Policy," testimony before the Subcommit tee on the Middle East and South Asia, U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., January 16, 2008.
44. Several terrorist conspiracies disrupted in the United Kingdom, for example, had links to askari tanzeems. "Pakistan Arrests 'Led to UK Moves' 2007," CNN.com, August 11, 2006; "Bomb Trail Goes Cold on Pakistani Ties," BBC News, May 11, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4761659.stm; and Paul Reynolds, "Bomber Video 'Points to al-Qaeda,'" BBC News, September 2, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4208250.stm.
45. This relationship is further complicated because the theological divisions between Pakistani militant organizations do not match their patterns of operational cooperation
46. C. Christine Fair, "Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: Implications for Al Qaeda and Other Organizations," Studies in Confiict and Terrorism, Vol. 27, No. 6 (November/December 2004), pp. 489-504
47. Peter Chalk and C. Christine Fair, "The Re-Orientation of Kashmiri Extremism: AThreat to Regional and International Security," Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 3, No. 22 (November 17, 2005), pp. 8-10; and C. Christine Fair, "Antecedents and Implications of the November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba Attack upon Mumbai," testimony before the Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection, U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, 111th Cong., 1st sess., March 11, 2009.
48. During recent fieldwork in Afghanistan, Fair learned of a small but important Lashkar-e-Taiba presence in Kunar and Nuristan, two Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan
49. See lengthy set of quotations to this effect in Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Malecková, "Seeking the Roots of Terrorism," Chronicle Review, June 6, 2003, pp. B10-B11. For a recent statement by former President and Chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf
50. see Chris Kenrick, "Poverty, Illiteracy Cause Terrorism-Musharraf," Palo Alto Online, January 7, 2009, http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=10802.
51. We believe that this view is driven in part by the conflation of shared networks with shared supporters. Analysts mistakenly assume that because Jaish-e-Mohammed has operational ties to al-Qaida, the two groups also share networks of supporters. This need not be the case, and our data suggest that it is not, at least not among passive supporters. For an example, see "The Mumbai Attacks: AWake-up Call for America's Private Sector," hearing before the Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection, U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, 111th Cong., 1st sess., March 11, 2009. Witnesses' statements showed a remarkable lack of clarity about the perpetrators' ties to other groups, their tactics, and their goals.
52. We use "perceived missions and goals" because Pakistanis' perceptions of these goals and missions likely differ from the actual goals and missions in the post-2002 period
53. After Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, spoke at the successful donors' conference in Tokyo, a Pakistani press release emphasized that "poverty alleviation is fundamental to contain and reverse extremism. Alternatives have to be offered to the youth from disadvantaged parts of the population to wean them away from the appeal of extremism." Stuart Biggs and Takashi Hirokawa, "Pakistan Gets $5.28 Billion for Economy, Security (Update #2)," Bloomberg, April 17, 2009.
54. Programs for Pakistan inextricably link poverty alleviation with diminishing the ability of militant groups to cultivate support or recruits. See, for example, "South and Central Asia Regional Overview," Congressional Budget Justification-Fiscal Year 2009 International Affairs (Function 150), http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2009/101468.pdf
55. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, "South and Central Asia," FY 2009 Supplemental Justification, http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbjs2009/cbjs2009_50.pdf.
56. See "USAID/Pakistan Interim Strategic Plan May 2003-September 2006."
57. This view is reflected in the 9/11 Commission Report, which recommends that "the United States should support Pakistan's government in its struggle against extremists with a comprehensive effort that extends from military aid to support for better education." National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 369.
58. See "From Strategy to Implementation: The Future of the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship," hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 111th Cong., 1st sess., May 5, 2009. Note, in particular, the comments of Representative Dan Burton on madrassas.
59. For an analysis of the discourse relating Islamism and terrorism, see Richard Jackson, "Constructing Enemies: 'Islamic Terrorism' in Political and Academic Discourse," Government and Opposition, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Summer 2007), pp. 394-426.
60. For a nuanced analysis of the relationship between political Islam and militancy, see Yahya Sadowski, "Political Islam: Asking the Wrong Questions?" Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 9 (2006), pp. 215-240.
61. The Islamist political party coalition-the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal-was consistently criticized for supporting the Taliban and accommodating the Pashtun Islamist insurgency riling the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. See, for example, Magnus Norell, "The Taliban and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 3 (August 2007), pp. 61-82.
62. For a more nuanced view, see Joshua T. White, Pakistan's Islamist Frontier: Islamic Politics and U.S. Policy in Pakistan's North-West Frontier (Washington, D.C.: Center on Faith and International Affairs, 2008).
63. Fair and Shepherd, "Research Note: Who Supports Terrorism?"
64. Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).
65. Author interactions with several staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate between January 2007 and May 2009.
66. The way in which "secularization" is translated into Urdu (ladiniyat) connotes a social state devoid of religion. There are few proponents for such a worldview in Pakistan. Thus many Pakistanis reject the notion of secularization.
67. Question-by-question results are reported in C. Christine Fair, Clay Ramsay, and Steven Kull, "Pakistani Public Opinion on Democracy, Islamist Militancy, and Relations with the U.S.," USIP Working Paper (Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, February 2008).
68. Cities included were Hyderabad, Kambar Ali Khan, Karachi, Khangarh, Kharian, Khuzdar, Lachi, Lahore, Lalian, Mingora, Multan, Okara, Peshawar, Quaidabad, Quetta, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Sadiqabad, Shahpur Jahania, and Tando Adam
69. A.C. Nielsen Pakistan made 2,618 contacts, yielding 907 completed interviews. Many (268) houses were locked on contact, 26 refused contact, 699 selected respondents were not at home, and 83 refused because they could not speak Urdu.
70. The Nielson Company, "Fieldwork Method Report: Public Opinion Poll September 2007, Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)," October 12th, 2007, available from authors upon request
71. Pakistan has not conducted a census since 1998. Thus estimates of population as well as the breakdown of rural and urban population may be subject to considerable measurement error. Figure taken from the CIA World Factbook, "Pakistan," last updated April 23, 2009, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html.
72. We are currently fielding a survey that will remedy this situation
73. Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), pp. 175-188.
74. Victor Asal, C. Christine Fair, and Stephen Shellman, "Consenting to a Child's Decision to Join a Jihad: Insights from a Survey of Militant Families in Pakistan," Studies in Con(ict and Terrorism, Vol. 31, No. 11 (November 2008), pp. 973-994
75. Fair, "Who Are Pakistan's Militants and Their Families?"
76. Mariam Abou Zahab, "I Shall Be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure)," in Aparna Rao, Michael Bollig, and Monika Bock, eds., The Practice of War: Production, Reproduction, and Communication of Armed Violence (New York: Berghan, 2007), pp. 133-158
77. C. Christine Fair, "Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection," Asia Policy, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer 2007), pp. 107-134
78. Saeed Shafqat, "From Official Islam to Islamism: The Rise of Dawat-ul-Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba," in Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (London: Zed, 2002), pp. 131-147
79. Rana, The A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan
80. "Askari tanzeems" are commonly understood by Pakistanis to be groups fighting in Indiancontrolled Kashmir and attacking Indian targets over the Kashmir issue. We cannot rule out the possibility that some respondents understand the term "askari tanzeem" as including sectarian militias.
81. National Commission of Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 367.
82. The differences between correlation coefficients across groups were statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level using Fisher's Z-transformation, which remains robust when Spearman's correlation coeffificients are used
83. 2 measure from a linear regression. The respective r2 measures for the Taliban, al-Qaida, and the askari tanzeems are 0.26, 0.39, and 0.35.
84. This is the most recent survey for which district-level data are available
85. Specifically, table 2 includes all religiosity and poverty measures that yielded statistically significant Wald and likelihood-ratio statistics for at least one group when compared to a baseline model using only demographic factors
86. A wide variety of nested model tests and fit statistics show that the amount of variation explained by religiosity and poverty is much smaller than that explained by support for other Islamist groups. Additional summary tables for this and all other results are available from the authors upon request.
87. Raja Asghar, "Senate Passes Women's Bill; MMA Amendments Rejected," Dawn (Karachi), November 24, 2006
88. The small number of responses in table 3 is driven by the fact that nonresponse rates for some of these questions approached 25 percent, but the specifific nonresponses varied across respondents, which means that few respondents answered all the questions. Removing one or two variables at a time from the models increases the sample size but does not change any core results. We therefore report the full model, despite the small sample size.
89. After controlling for feelings about Islamist politics, the results from table 2 remain the same, casting further doubt on hypotheses linking religion and poverty to militancy
90. The cleanest question measuring support for democracy in the survey asked respondents how important it was that Pakistan be governed by elected representatives. Support for democracy was so high and homogeneous that there was not enough variation on this variable to identify any impact.
91. Wald and likelihood-ratio tests for nested models suggest that adding support for an independent judiciary never results in a statistically significant increase in explained variance, and that adding support for minority rights and representative government helps explain support only for the askari tanzeems
92. We present the results for these variables in the next section
93. A similar logic could explain the finding that those who feel that Pakistan is falling behind India economically are less supportive of militant groups. Another explanation for supporting askari tanzeems is a fundamental belief about Kashmiri sovereignty that is independent of how India treats its Muslims generally or Kashmiris in particular. Our survey did not ask about this, however.
94. We are addressing this problem by conducting a follow-on survey with a larger sample size and a quasi-experimental design intended to limit nonresponse rates and explicitly address the interaction of political concerns with the perceived strategic environment
95. C. Christine Fair, "Pakistan's Own War on Terror: What the Pakistani Public Thinks," Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 1 (November 2009). For data as of June 2007, see United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan (2001-2007), ed. C. Christine Fair (Kabul: UNAMA, September 9, 2007).
96. See author fieldwork in Pakistan that involved conducting a democracy and governance assessment in April 2008. Interviews were conducted in Lahore, Islamabad, and Quetta.
97. Mathew J. Nelson, "Muslims, Markets, and the Meaning of 'Good' Education in Pakistan," Asian Survey, Vol. 46, No. 5 (September/October 2006), pp. 699-720
98. C. Christine Fair, The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008).
99. The Islamist political party coalition-the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal-was consistently criticized for supporting the Taliban and accommodating the Pashtun Islamist insurgency riling the border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. See, for example, Magnus Norell, "The Taliban and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)," China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 3 (August 2007), pp. 61-82.
100. For a more nuanced view, see Joshua T. White, Pakistan's Islamist Frontier: Islamic Politics and U.S. Policy in Pakistan's North-West Frontier (Washington, D.C.: Center on Faith and International Affairs, 2008).
101. Fair and Shepherd, "Research Note: Who Supports Terrorism?"
102. Quintan Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).
103. Author interactions with several staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate between January 2007 and May 2009.
104. The way in which "secularization" is translated into Urdu (ladiniyat) connotes a social state devoid of religion. There are few proponents for such a worldview in Pakistan. Thus many Pakistanis reject the notion of secularization.
105. Question-by-question results are reported in C. Christine Fair, Clay Ramsay, and Steven Kull, "Pakistani Public Opinion on Democracy, Islamist Militancy, and Relations with the U.S.," USIP Working Paper (Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, February 2008).
106. Cities included were Hyderabad, Kambar Ali Khan, Karachi, Khangarh, Kharian, Khuzdar, Lachi, Lahore, Lalian, Mingora, Multan, Okara, Peshawar, Quaidabad, Quetta, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Sadiqabad, Shahpur Jahania, and Tando Adam
107. A.C. Nielsen Pakistan made 2,618 contacts, yielding 907 completed interviews. Many (268) houses were locked on contact, 26 refused contact, 699 selected respondents were not at home, and 83 refused because they could not speak Urdu.
108. The Nielson Company, "Fieldwork Method Report: Public Opinion Poll September 2007, Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)," October 12th, 2007, available from authors upon request
109. Pakistan has not conducted a census since 1998. Thus estimates of population as well as the breakdown of rural and urban population may be subject to considerable measurement error. Figure taken from the CIA World Factbook, "Pakistan," last updated April 23, 2009, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html.
110. We are currently fielding a survey that will remedy this situation
111. Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), pp. 175-188.
112. oict and Terrorism, Vol. 31, No. 11 (November 2008), pp. 973-994
113. Fair, "Who Are Pakistan's Militants and Their Families?"
114. Mariam Abou Zahab, "I Shall Be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure)," in Aparna Rao, Michael Bollig, and Monika Bock, eds., The Practice of War: Production, Reproduction, and Communication of Armed Violence (New York: Berghan, 2007), pp. 133-158
115. C. Christine Fair, "Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection," Asia Policy, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer 2007), pp. 107- 134
116. Saeed Shafqat, "From Official Islam to Islamism: The Rise of Dawat-ul-Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba," in Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (London: Zed, 2002), pp. 131-147
117. Rana, The A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan
118. "Askari tanzeems" are commonly understood by Pakistanis to be groups fighting in Indiancontrolled Kashmir and attacking Indian targets over the Kashmir issue. We cannot rule out the possibility that some respondents understand the term "askari tanzeem" as including sectarian militias.
119. National Commission of Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 367.
120. The differences between correlation coefficients across groups were statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level using Fisher's Z-transformation, which remains robust when Spearman's correlation coeffificients are used
121. 2 measures for the Taliban, al-Qaida, and the askari tanzeems are 0.26, 0.39, and 0.35.
122. This is the most recent survey for which district-level data are available
123. Specifically, table 2 includes all religiosity and poverty measures that yielded statistically significant Wald and likelihood-ratio statistics for at least one group when compared to a baseline model using only demographic factors
124. A wide variety of nested model tests and fit statistics show that the amount of variation explained by religiosity and poverty is much smaller than that explained by support for other Islamist groups. Additional summary tables for this and all other results are available from the authors upon request.
125. Raja Asghar, "Senate Passes Women's Bill; MMA Amendments Rejected," Dawn (Karachi), November 24, 2006
126. The small number of responses in table 3 is driven by the fact that nonresponse rates for some of these questions approached 25 percent, but the specifific nonresponses varied across respondents, which means that few respondents answered all the questions. Removing one or two variables at a time from the models increases the sample size but does not change any core results. We therefore report the full model, despite the small sample size.
127. After controlling for feelings about Islamist politics, the results from table 2 remain the same, casting further doubt on hypotheses linking religion and poverty to militancy
128. The cleanest question measuring support for democracy in the survey asked respondents how important it was that Pakistan be governed by elected representatives. Support for democracy was so high and homogeneous that there was not enough variation on this variable to identify any impact.
129. Wald and likelihood-ratio tests for nested models suggest that adding support for an independent judiciary never results in a statistically significant increase in explained variance, and that adding support for minority rights and representative government helps explain support only for the askari tanzeems
130. We present the results for these variables in the next section
131. A similar logic could explain the finding that those who feel that Pakistan is falling behind India economically are less supportive of militant groups. Another explanation for supporting askari tanzeems is a fundamental belief about Kashmiri sovereignty that is independent of how India treats its Muslims generally or Kashmiris in particular. Our survey did not ask about this, however.
132. We are addressing this problem by conducting a follow-on survey with a larger sample size and a quasi-experimental design intended to limit nonresponse rates and explicitly address the interaction of political concerns with the perceived strategic environment
133. C. Christine Fair, "Pakistan's Own War on Terror: What the Pakistani Public Thinks," Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 1 (November 2009). For data as of June 2007, see United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan (2001-2007), ed. C. Christine Fair (Kabul: UNAMA, September 9, 2007).
134. See author fieldwork in Pakistan that involved conducting a democracy and governance assessment in April 2008. Interviews were conducted in Lahore, Islamabad, and Quetta.
135. Mathew J. Nelson, "Muslims, Markets, and the Meaning of 'Good' Education in Pakistan," Asian Survey, Vol. 46, No. 5 (September/October 2006), pp. 699-720
136. C. Christine Fair, The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2008).