Reciprocity and Prejudice

203 Pages·2013·1.45 MB·English

by  Andrej Tusicisny

Reciprocity and Prejudice:
An Experiment of Hindu-Muslim Cooperation in the Slums of Mumbai

Andrej Tusicisny

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2013
© 2013
Andrej Tusicisny
All rights reserved
ABSTRACT
Reciprocity and Prejudice: An Experiment of Hindu-Muslim Cooperation in the Slums of
Mumbai
Andrej Tusicisny

The dissertation develops and tests a new theory to explain intergroup cooperation and outgroup
discrimination. The theoretical part specifies under what conditions ethnic differences undermine
public goods provision and exacerbate ethnic discrimination. It posits that people cooperate more
with and discriminate less against the groups expected to reciprocate cooperative behavior.
Conditional cooperators rationally update their group stereotypes based on their experience with
the groups’ individual members. This change in turn reduces prejudice and discrimination. I
tested observable implications of the model on a representative sample of more than 400 slum-
dwellers in Mumbai. The field research in India combined laboratory experiments, an original
survey, and interviews. Once I manipulated expectations of reciprocity, ethnically heterogeneous
groups produced as much public goods as the homogeneous ones. The experimental treatment
also radically increased trust and reduced ethnic discrimination of the generally mistrusted
Muslim minority. The survey analysis compared the real-life effect of reciprocity with prominent
alternative explanations from the literature. Compared to other factors, positive reciprocity
provides a powerful explanation of why people choose to discriminate against some, but not
other ethnic groups. The cross-national chapter of the dissertation extends the analysis beyond
India. Using surveys from 87 countries, it shows that generalized trust moderates the negative
effect of ethnic diversity on people’s willingness to contribute to public goods.
Table of Contents

1. Rational Model of Intergroup Cooperation and Conflict 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Argument 9
1.2.1 Reciprocity 9
1.2.2 Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination 11
1.2.3 Intergroup Contact 15
1.3 Predictions 18
1.4 Structure, Agency, and Social Construction of Identities 22
2. Ethnic Conflict and Cooperation in Slums 26
2.1 History of the Hindu-Muslim Conflict in Mumbai 26
2.2 Population of Interest 30
2.3 Slums 37
2.4 Sample 41
3. An Experiment of Hindu-Muslims Cooperation in Slums 46
3.1 Procedure 47
3.1.1 Randomization 47
3.1.2 Laboratory Experiments 49
3.1.2.1 First Dictator Game 50
3.1.2.2 Public Goods Game 52
3.1.2.2.1 Logic of the Payoff Structure 52
i
3.1.2.2.2 Procedure of the Public Goods Game 58
3.1.2.3 Second Dictator Game 63
3.1.3 Post-Treatment Survey 64
3.2 Results 68
3.2.1 Cooperation 68
3.2.2 Trust 73
3.2.3 Social Distance 75
3.2.4 Subgroups 82
3.2.5 Ethnocentrism 83
3.2.6 Reciprocity and Contact 88
3.3 Conclusion 90
4. Selective Discrimination of Outgroups 92
4.1 Puzzling Selective Discrimination of Outgroups and Its Explanations 92
4.2 Research design 95
4.3 Results 100
4.4 Conclusion 109
5. Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods Provision 110
5.1 Public Goods Provision in Ethnically Heterogeneous Countries 110
5.2 Research design 115
5.3 Results 123
5.4 Conclusion 128
6. Conclusions 130
6.1 Summary of Findings 130
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6.2 Theoretical Contributions 131
6.2.1 Contributions to the Literature on Ethnicity 131
6.2.2 Contributions to the Literature on Economic Development 132
6.3 Methodological Contributions 133
6.4 Policy Implications 135
Appendix A: Additional Tables and Figures 141
Appendix B: Questionnaire Used in India 159
Bibliography 170

iii
List of Tables and Figures

Figure 1 Cooperation Rate in the Public Goods Game 69
Figure 2 Distrust of Muslims by Treatment Group, percentage with 95% 74
Confidence Intervals
Figure 3 Avoidance of Muslims by Treatment Group, percentage with 95% 76
Confidence Intervals
Figure 4 Average Contributions in the First Dictator Game 84
Figure 5 Average Contributions in the Second Dictator Game 86
Figure 6 Predicted Willingness to Contribute to Public Goods 124
Figure A.1 Discrimination against Muslims (Thick Lines) and Other Outgroups 158
(Thin Lines)
Map 1 Research Sites in Mumbai 38
Table 1 Predicted Group Bias Depending on Expected Cooperative Behavior 18
Table 2 Sampled Individuals by Treatment Group and Neighborhood 48
Table 3 Demographic Characteristics of the Treatment Groups 49
Table 4 Payoff Structure of the Stag Hunt Game 53
Table 5 Logistic Regression Predicting Social Distance (Neighbors) 77
Table 6 Logistic Regression Predicting Social Distance (Intermarriage) 80
Table 7 Generalized Linear Model Predicting Discrimination 101
Table 8 Weighted GLM Predicting Willingness to Contribute to Public 125
Goods
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Table A.1 Descriptive Statistics (Full Sample) 141
Table A.2 Logistic Regression Predicting Distrust of Muslims 142
Table A.3 Logistic Regression Predicting Social Distance 143
Table A.4 Test of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects 144
Table A.5 Logistic Regression of Social Distance on Altruism 145
Table A.6 Linear Regression Predicting Altruism Change Score 146
Table A.7 Logistic Regression of Social Distance on Social Identity Salience 147
Table A.8 Logistic Regression Predicting Ingroup Favoritism in the Dictator 148
Game
Table A.9 Quantity and Quality of Previous Intergroup Contact 149
Table A.10 Logistic Regression of Social Distance on Relative Social Status 150
Table A.11 Descriptive Statistics for the Control Group 151
Table A.12 Ordinal Logistic Regression Predicting Perceived Threat 152
Table A.13 Number of Respondents per Survey 153
Table A.14 Descriptive Statistics of the World Values Survey Data 156
Table A.15 Multilevel Model of Willingness to Contribute to Public Goods 157

v
Acknowledgements

This project was supported by a Columbia University GSAS International Traveling
Fellowship. Over almost three years, it benefited greatly from frequent discussions with
Jack Snyder, Donald Green, and Neelanjan Sircar. Despite being busy with their own
ambitious projects, they provided detailed feedback on multiple earlier drafts. I am
grateful to Macartan Humphreys and Kanchan Chandra for asking tough questions that
sometimes pushed the project to unexpected directions. John Huber and Alexandra
Scacco offered me their kind support and thoughtful advice on the manuscript. I would
like also to thank R.N. Sharma for his guidance during my field research in India and to
two tireless research assistants, Aditya Padwal and Priyesh Gohil, for being willing to
work with me 12 hours a day. Other people that I am indebted to for their comments and
suggestions at various stages of the project are (in an alphabetic order): Rikhil Bhavnani,
Banasmita Bora, Rachel Brule, Jennifer Bussell, Basudeb Chaudhuri, Daniel Corstange,
Page Fortna, Andrew Gelman, Guy Grossman, Thomas Blom Hansen, Rafael Hortala-
Vallve, Francesca R. Jensenius, Paul Kenny, Satendra Kumar, Alexander Lee, Sudha
Mohan, Poulami Roychowdhury, Mark Schneider, Abdul Shaban, Vasundhara Sirnate,
Divya Vaid, Gilles Verniers, Marie-Hélene Zerah. Various portions of dissertation
received feedback at the South Asia Workshop (New Delhi), Columbia University
International Politics Seminar (New York), Columbia University Comparative Politics
Seminar (New York), and Sixth Annual NYU-CESS Conference on Experimental
Political Science (New York). Finally, I also owe my thanks to the Columbia Global
Center South Asia that hosted me during my research stay in Mumbai.
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1
Chapter 1. Rational Model of Intergroup Cooperation and Conflict

1.1 Introduction

On the night of January 8, 1993, a Hindu family of six was sleeping in a simple
room at Radhabai Chawl, in a Muslim slum in northern Bombay. In the middle of night,
someone blocked their door and threw a petrol bomb in through the window. The whole
family perished in the blazing fire that would soon spread out and turn the cosmopolitan
metropolis into an inferno. One of the victims was a handicapped teenage girl. Stirred by
an unfounded rumor that the handicapped Hindu girl was gang-raped by the same
Muslim men who later set her and her parents on fire, a Hindu mob assembled and started
to massacre Muslims across the city. A New York-based writer Suketu Mehta interviewed
some of the rioters for his Pulitzer finalist book Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.
This is how Sunil, a Hindu rioter, remembers one of their gruesome murders (Mehta
2004, 39):
“We met a pavwallah on the highway, on a bicycle. I knew him; he used to sell me
bread every day. I set him on fire. We poured petrol on him and set him on fire.
All I thought was, This is a Muslim. He was shaking. He was crying, 'I have
children, I have children!' I said , 'When your Muslims were killing the Radhabai
Chawl people, did you think of your children?'”
Sunil's story of killing an acquaintance because of a collective identity seems to
support the standard view of ethnic conflict as a principally inescapable phenomenon.
Especially in the 1990s, this belief justified passivity of politicians in dealing with ethnic