To Punish or to Pardon? Attitudes Towards Justice and Reintegration for Europeans who Cooperated with the Islamic State
Short description
In April 2020, Professor Kristen Kao (University of Gothenburg) and Professor Peter Esaiasson (University of Gothenburg) were awarded 66,000 SEK (approx. 7,500 USD) by Lundgrens Vetenskapsfond to study the return of Islamic State collaborators to Europe. GLD collaborated on this project until December 2021.
About the Project
Thousands of European citizens who had traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State (IS) later sought repatriation and reintegration into their home communities. This project aimed to understand the conditions under which Europeans were willing to accept the return of compatriot IS collaborators into their communities. It explored how variations in the social identity of an IS collaborator (e.g., gender, age) and the type of collaboration (e.g., combat, marriage to a fighter, or employment in a civilian job) influenced prospects for reintegration.
The project also examined whether state-imposed punishments or rehabilitative measures could facilitate reconciliation or if these transgressions should lead to the loss of citizenship, as advocated by some policymakers. Furthermore, it investigated how perceptions of injustice—arising from discrepancies between what individuals deemed appropriate and what the state imposed—affected desires for retribution and perceptions of state legitimacy.
The project developed a theoretical framework that combined political theories of state legitimacy with psychological theories of (in)justice, retribution, and forgiveness. To test this framework, Facebook surveys incorporating embedded conjoint experiments were conducted in Sweden. The study involved 1,500 Swedish-speaking and 1,500 Arabic-speaking residents of Sweden, enabling comparisons between older and newer residents of Europe.
In the context of international terrorism, this project provided policymakers with insights to promote safe, secure, and inclusive societies, offering broader implications for addressing criminal behavior and reinforcing the legitimacy of the state.
Related Publications
Kao, Kristen and Redlich Revkin, Mara. (2018). "To Punish or to Pardon?" Governance and Local Development Working Paper Series, No. 17. Available here.
Revkin, Mara Redlich and Kristen Kao. (2021). "How Does Punishment Affect Reintegration? Evidence from Islamic State “Collaborators” in Iraq." Governance and Local Development Working Paper Series, No. 41. Available here.
Acknowledgments
This project is supported by the To Punish or to Pardon? Attitudes Towards Justice and Reintegration for Swedes who Cooperated with the Islamic State grant (Lundgrens Vetenskapsfond 2020-3643) grant, PI: Kristen Kao.