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DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS YALE UNIVERSITY P.O. Box 208268 New Haven, CT 06520-8268 http://www.econ.yale.edu/ Economics Department Working Paper No. 60 CHOICE UNDER PRESSURE A Dual Preference Model and Its Application Tolga Koker March 2009 This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1368398 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1368398 CHOICE UNDER PRESSURE A Dual Preference Model and Its Application Tolga Koker* Yale University March 2009 Abstract By making a distinction between public and private preferences, the paper presents a dual preference model depicting possible responses (i.e., exit, sincere voice and self-subversion) to social pressures from two opposing pressure groups. Exit is deserting the setting; sincere voice is publicly expressing dissatisfaction and self-subversion is the misrepresentation of one’s private preference under social pressures. Exit and sincere voice involve prohibitive costs, making self-subversion the superior option. Massive self-subversion polarizes the society, harboring multiple social equilibria with oscillating public opinion. In an effort to dominate the public discourse, each rival pressure group opts for favorable corner equilibrium. The paper applies the dual preference model to Turkey where two kinds of self- subversion appear in response to competing Islamist and secularist social projects. Islamist pressures lead to pro-Islamist self-subversion, and secularist pressures to pro-secularist self-subversion, resulting in the polarization of the Turkish public opinion along Islamists vs. Secularists. Three field experiments with 450 respondents provide empirical support for the model’s conclusions. The paper ends with the discussion of the model’s implications for new social equilibrium(s). JEL: D58, D70, D72, D79, D82, Z12 Keywords: Public preference, private preference, pressure group, exit, sincere voice, self-subversion, multiple equilibria, public opinion, polarization, Islam, secularism, Turkey. * I wish to express my thanks to Timur Kuran, Lauire Brand, Didar Erdinc. Leyla Keskiner and Ece Tuna provided excellent assistance in data collection. I am solely responsible for the remaining mistakes. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1368398 Choice Under Pressure, 2 1 INTRODUCTION In Turkey, Islamists and secularists have long battled to control public opinion. Secularists have attempted to lock religion into the private sphere. For their part, Islamists have strived for more public visibility. On each side, activists have exerted tremendous pressures on the non-activist majority, trying to make ordinary individuals act as if they are committed to their own position. In order to determine the non-activist majority’s responses to Islamist and secularist pressures, we have conducted three identical field experiments over the last decade (1998, 2004, and 2008) as follows: In both experiments, a pair of interviewers carried out interviews in sets of three, administering them identically, except for the types of accessories used by the interviewers. In one interview, the interviewers carried Islamist symbols. In the other, secularist symbols were used. Lastly, in the neutral interview, the interviewers had no symbols at all. While the three hundred participants revealed more or less similar responses to the questions not related to religion, the questions on secularism and Islamism yielded extremely significant changes in the participants’ revealed preferences at the level of (p<0.005). The field experiments clearly showed that people dissimulated their revealed preferences on controversial issues and taboos in response to perceived pressures. By using Turkey as a case study, this paper presents an improved version of Kuran’s (1995) dual preference model depicting all the possible individual responses under social pressures. It also theorizes on the unintended consequences of such responses on the social equilibria both stable and unstable. The model also enables us to contemplate on the future of Turkish society. 2 A DUAL PREFERENCE MODEL Let us take a hot public issue on which two rival pressure groups (i.e., Islamist and secularists) advocate diametrically opposing policies and campaign to win public opinion to their side as a source of political power: The issue could be veiling, liquor licensing, the prohibition of alcohol, regulation of prostitution in the state designated areas or the ban on interest. Each member in society one way or another has at least some opinion on these topics. Yet, in a charged public environment, especially the moderate members may find it difficult to adhere to their unique position when faced pressures from opposing Islamist and secularist camps. Before stepping into the public sphere, each individual in the society first must decide by herself on her genuine opinion regarding Islamism and secularism. This constitutes her private preference that is only known to her. Then, she must decide which group to support and to what degree, Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1368398 3 Tolga Koker through speech and action, by declaring a public preference. There is no guarantee that an individual will genuinely display her private preferences in public. This forms the basis of the dual preference model in which the individual drives separate utilities from holding private and public preferences. 2.1 Intrinsic Utility First think of an individual who must make a decision in a secret ballot referendum, e.g., the abolition or strict enforcement of the ban on the veil in schools and public offices. A pious Muslim is likely to vote YES for the abolition whereas a secular citizen may vote NO for the abolition. In a secret ballot, an individual will vote for the option that provides her the greatest intrinsic utility on the issue in question by doing cost-benefit analysis. Independent of what the individual does under social pressure, the intrinsic utility depends on her private preference represented by I = I (x), (1) where x represents her private preference towards veiling -- the preference that the individual has in her heart I(x) is assumed to be concave, and the private preference, x* maximizes the intrinsic utility when the individual is true to herself. A veiled pious Muslim female derives utmost inner satisfaction as she knows that she is pleasing Allah. An unveiled woman, a strong believer in the secular dress code, enjoys intrinsic utility from being secular. Their values range from 0 (extreme Islamist, veiled) to 100 (extreme secularist, unveiled) such that x*Î[0, 100]. Hence, the individual private preferences constitute a continuum between complete veiling of women in both public and private domains on the one extreme and complete unveiling on the other. Intrinsic utility function is, at its maximum, denoted by I (x*) and is fixed for every individual at Î such that Î = I(x*=0) = … = I(x*=100) for all x* Î[0, 100]. By assumption, each individual preference leans towards either the Islamist side or the secularist side on the issue of veiling along with others such that no neutral person reveals a preference of x*=50. Although private preferences may change over time, the pace of change is very likely to be slow so that we can treat preferences as fixed in the short run. If the individual derives only intrinsic utility she will clearly set her public and private preferences equal to each other to optimize her happiness. However, in the presence of social pressure, she will have to decide on whether to conform to the social norms of “acceptable” lifestyles, which fits Choice Under Pressure, 4 with the society’s choice. This brings us to the other sources of utility for an individual who enters the public realm. 2.2 Reputational Utility If an individual prefers not to wear socks, her preference is a non-issue since it is considered a matter of personal choice. However, this is not the case for veiling. The activity of veiling itself becomes a political matter if it is a matter of social concern as in Turkey (as well as in Europe and many other Muslim countries) where most Islamists and secularists view the act of veiling as a political statement in the public sphere. As in the act of veiling, we routinely state our opinions about most social issues by making our preferences known to others through actions, words, gestures and even through the way we dress in the public sphere. When a woman steps out of her house veiled, she makes others know her public preference on an Islamic way of life. The preferences we make known to others are our public preferences, y. The net payoff we receive from the various responses to a public preference is our reputational utility - utility from the reputation of signaling that particular preference. To the extent that our public preferences match others’ expectations in conformity with the accepted social norms and opinions, we are rewarded by their approval and respect. Hence, the closer our public preferences represented by y* gets to society’s choice, yH where H stands for “home,” the more we feel gratified in the public sphere. The following function relates reputational utility of an individual to her public preference y capturing the effect of net social rewards or punishments in response to her revealed public preference to determine the net payoff from reputational considerations: R= ρR(y), (2) where R(y) is concave in y and y∈[0, 100] and ρ is the weighting factor of reputational utility. Public preference y is continuous between 0 (extreme Islamist, veiled) and 100 (extreme secularist, unveiled). R(y) is maximized at y*=0 when a completely Islamist society adopts strictly Islamist policies such that yH=0. If the individual exhibits a public preference of y*=100 in a strictly Islamic society where yH =0, her reputational utility will be zero as she will be ostracized by all members of the society or even sentenced to prison if she takes off her veil as in Iran and Saudi Arabia.