Territorial Threat and the Decline of Political Trust in Africa: A Multilevel Analysis

Abstract

Theorists of international conflict argue that territory is an unusually salient issue to states and, by extension, their publics. Comparing competing insights from the “rally-round-the-flag” literature and those derived from theories of the state, I examine which theory best explains the effects of external threats to territory on levels of domestic trust. Using information from twenty-eight Afrobarometer surveys of sixteen different countries between 1999 and 2004, I assess the relationship between external threat and political trust using cross-sectional, multilevel models. The results challenge the rally effect hypothesis and suggest that government approval moderates the effect of territorial threat on trust. These findings demonstrate the salience of territorial issues domestically and generate novel insights about approval and trust in Africa.