Does the Hijab Increase Representatives’ Perceptions of Social Distance?

Abstract

We explore whether the hijab affects politicians’ views of citizens. To better isolate the effect of religious attire, we focus on a context in Europe where Muslims are not foreigners—Bosnia. We presented local politicians (N = 1,389) with a group photo of ordinary men and women in Bosnia. Respondents were randomized to view a photo where some (treatment) or none (control) of the women were wearing the hijab. We find that the hijab effect differs for Muslims and non-Muslims. For Muslim politicians, wearing the hijab does not affect their belief that they can represent their constituents well. However, for these politicians, the hijab appears to signal demand for more ethnicity-based representation. For non-Muslim politicians, however, religious attire creates social distance toward their hijab-wearing constituents. This effect does not emerge because local elites think Hijabis themselves feel social distance toward these elites.