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Janet I. Lewis will present "Harnessing Networks to Counter Anti-Refugee Rumors: A Field Experiment in Uganda."
Sharing and vetting uncertain information about out-groups is a social process, and a consequential one. Recent negative rumors about migrants reportedly sparked violence towards them in India, Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Uganda. Can this social process be harnessed to warm intergroup attitudes instead? We conducted a field experiment in Uganda, home to the largest refugee population in Africa, which reinforced positive information about refugees, addressed rumors, and encouraged perspective-taking either one-on-one or in groups. Both modes were effective and generated a social response. The group setting had a bigger impact: It warmed attitudes more in the short- and longer-term, kicked off larger spillovers to non-participants through village social networks, and changed beliefs about others’ attitudes more. These findings underscore the importance of social processes for efforts to warm intergroup relations.
Janet I. Lewis is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. Her research examines political violence, intergroup conflict, social networks, and state formation, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Her book How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond won three awards for Best Book of the year: from the International Studies Association, the Conflict Research Society, and the African Politics section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). It also received an Honorable Mention from the Qualitative and Mixed Methods section of APSA. It seeks to understand why only some nascent rebel groups become viable challengers to states, while others fail early on. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Minerva Research Initiative. It integrates methods from qualitative fieldwork to statistical methods and field experiments. Recent projects are published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and International Organization, among others, and several won best article awards. Since May 2023, she also serves as Associate Editor at Security Studies.
Previously, she was Assistant Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy. She has also held fellowships at Harvard University’s College Fellows Program and Yale University’s Program on Order, Conflict and Violence (OCV). Outside academia, she has conducted research on U.S. stability operations, fragile states, and terrorist financing, respectively, for the RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). She completed her Ph.D. and M.A. in Government at Harvard University, and earned an M.A. in International Policy Studies and a B.A. with Honors in Political Science at Stanford University.
