Dominant group backlash? Majority responses to minority participation in the police
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231200921 |
| Author | Matthew Nanes |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433231200921
Journal of Peace Research
2025, Vol. 62(1) 36 –51
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433231200921
journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr
1225162JPR0010.1177/00223433231200921Journal of Peace ResearchNanes
research-article2023
Regular Article
Dominant group backlash? Majority
responses to minority participation
in the police
Matthew Nanes
Department of Political Science, Saint Louis University
Abstract
Security sector reform often involves integrating marginalized groups into the police. Extensive discussion surrounds
the benefits of inclusion to the marginalized group, but we know little about impacts on the dominant group. I argue
that exposure to out-group police can increase dominant group civilians’ trust in the out-group, opening the door for
further reforms and increasing the likelihood of peace. I explore dominant group citizens’ responses to out-group
police officers in Israel. First, using a survey experiment, I find no evidence that exposure to Arab (marginalized)
police officers leads to backlash by Jewish (dominant) civilians. Then, drawing on multiple surveys and panel data on
the identity of officers at every station over six years, I find that exposure to Arab police is associated with increased
trust in Arabs among Jews. This trust extends to both everyday situations like willingness to live next door to an Arab
and to beliefs about Arabs’ intentions to commit political violence. Collectively, these results contradict fears that
backlash by the dominant group might spoil peace, opening the door for police integration as an important part of
peace processes.
Keywords
ethnic politics, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, peace processes, police
In divided societies where group identity corresponds
with social and political cleavages, representation in gov-
erning institutions can reduce inequalities and ease ten-
sions. Representation is particularly important in
policing, where racial (Weitzer & Tuch, 2004), religious
(Nanes, 2021), gender (Karim et al., 2018; Jassal, 2020),
and ethnic (Blair et al., 2022) inclusion impact crime,
attitudes towards the police, and support for rebellion.
Group-based representation is often central to attempts
to address civil conflicts (Call & Stanley, 2003). Of the
196 peace agreements signed between 1975 and 2011,
39.8% include police power-sharing, among them
17.4% that explicitly address the composition of the
police (Ansorg, Haass & Strasheim, 2016). Northern
Ireland’s Good Friday Agreements led to an increase in
the proportion of Catholic officers from less than 10% in
the early 1990s to more than 30% two decades later
(Bayley, 2008). Post-conflict accords in Burundi (Samii,
2013), Afghanistan, the Philippines, and dozens of other
states (Enloe, 1980; Call & Stanley, 2003; Hoddie &
Hartzell, 2003) similarly incorporate former combatants
into the state’s armed institutions.
Research points to numerous reasons why inclusion in
the police appeals to marginalized groups. We know far
less about how members of the dominant group respond
to policing by out-groups. If dominant group civilians
view out-group police officers as less competent or not
worthy of authority, they may refuse to cooperate, ham-
pering the police’s ability to deliver services. Violent
conflict magnifies concerns, as the dominant group
might fear harm at the hands of out-group police officers.
During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Protestant
leaders feared that weapons given to Catholic police offi-
cers would find their way to the IRA (Potter, 2001).
Similarly, some Jewish Israelis feared arming a
Corresponding author:
matthew.nanes@slu.edu
Nanes 37
Palestinian police force as part of the Oslo Accords (Lia,
2006). Such fears have substantial implications for peace.
In 1995, a Jewish Israeli citizen opposed to the Palesti-
nian peace process assassinated Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin. Mahatma Gandhi was similarly assassi-
nated by a Hindu nationalist who feared Gandhi was
making too many concessions to Muslims.
In contrast, I argue that exposure to out-group police
can improve intergroup trust. ‘Contact hypothesis’ (All-
port, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006; Mousa, 2020;
Alrababa’h et al., 2021; Weiss, 2021) suggests that under
certain circumstances, contact with out-groups improves
attitudes towards that group. In the shadow of group-
based conflict, people often fear that out-groups seek to
harm them. Contact with an out-group officer in which
that officer does not mistreat them despite carrying a
weapon and having the backing of legal authority pro-
vides new information about the group and contradicts
negative stereotypes. Individuals update their percep-
tions of the group accordingly (Pettigrew, 1998; Herrera
& Kydd, 2022).
I explore dominant group responses to police integra-
tion using micro-level data from Israel, an important case
because of its ongoing conflict in which dominant group
responses to the peace process have spoiled negotiations
on several occasions. Israel presents a challenging test for
police integration because members of the Jewish major-
ity frequently associate Arabs with terrorism and disloy-
alty. If backlash against police integration were to occur
anywhere, it should occur in a place like Israel where
distrust and fear of violence by the marginalized group
are high. Analytically, Israel is a useful case because expo-
sure to Arab police officers varies considerably across
citizens living in different areas, allowing for a within-
case design which holds constant many potential con-
founds that plague cross-national analyses.
I first use an experiment embedded within a survey to
test the condition that Jewish (dominant) civilians do
not systematically evaluate Arab (marginalized) police
officers more negatively than Jewish police officers. If
they did, exposure to Arab police could sour impressions
of the group, undermining the trust-building effects of
contact. I randomly manipulate the identity of police
officers in several vignettes and then ask Israeli Jews to
evaluate the police’s actions. Across a range of outcomes,
I fail to find any differences in evaluations depending on
officers’ identities.
I then test whether exposure to Arab police is associ-
ated with increased trust in Arabs among Jews. First,
among respondents to the same survey mentioned above,
individuals who perceive the Israel Police to be more
integrated express greater trust in Arab citizens in com-
mon day-to-day scenarios. I then evaluate the effects of
exposure via actual officer demographics. I match panel
data on the religious identities of officers at every police
station in Israel from 2008 to 2014 with responses to
Israel’s National Election Study in 2009, 2013, and
2015. Jewish Israelis who live in areas with more Arab
police are less likely to fear that Arabs seek to destroy the
state of Israel, an important example of trust in the con-
text of conflict. I address risks of reverse causality and
endogeneity through placebo tests and controls.
The trust-enhancing effects of contact clear the way
for police reform as an important part of peace processes.
Police integration may provide a more moderate alterna-
tive to military integration, as it delivers similar benefits
to the marginalized group while also improving attitudes
among the dominant group.
Next, the results reinforce the notion that demo-
graphics in policing, and perhaps in government institu-
tions more broadly, matter as a means to an end. If
people were inherently predisposed to prefer authority
figures from their own group, we would observe a neg-
ative response by Jewish Israelis to out-group police.
Instead, these results suggest a more complex causal
pathway through which intergroup contact affects expec-
tations of out-groups.
Finally, these findings contribute to a growing body of
evidence that contact between individuals of unequal
status can influence attitudes towards out-groups (Petti-
grew & Tropp, 2006; Alrababa’h et al., 2021; Weiss,
2021). Interactions between civilians and police are char-
acterized by an authority–subordinate relationship
which makes interactions risky for the subordinate. One
possibility is that Jews’ status as the dominant group
reduces this perceived risk and increases their tolerance
for interactions with out-group authority figures. A
related possibility is that institutions of policing which
historically privilege the dominant group alleviate con-
cerns about interactions with an out-group authority
figure. Finally, structures of policing may socialize offi-
cers into a police identity, reducing differences in beha-
viors across officers from different groups. Regardless, it
seems that authority–subordinate interactions between
out-groups do not inherently rule out the possibility of
trust-building through contact.
Police integration in peace processes
A rich literature on peace processes engages with the
makeup of the police and armed forces (Krebs & Lickli-
der, 2016; Arriola et al., 2021). One set of reforms
2journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
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