School of Social and Political Science

Description

Abstract:

While existing research suggests that crises can influence social solidarity by shaping perceptions of threat, responsibility, and deservingness, less is known about the relative effects of crisis contexts and crisis narratives on helping behavior during crisis situations. When citizens confront collective emergencies, do they respond primarily to the nature of a crisis itself or to the narratives used to explain it? To address this question, we conduct a nationwide survey experiment in Türkiye employing a 4 × 4 factorial design that varies both crisis type (climate change, earthquake, economic crisis, and pandemic) and crisis frame (control, religious, conspiratorial, and scientific). We examine two dimensions of prosocial behavior: donation intention and donation amount. The findings suggest that crisis contexts matter more than crisis narratives. Across most framing conditions, earthquake scenarios generate higher donation intentions than economic crises, while framing effects are generally weak and rarely statistically significant. By contrast, neither crisis types nor crisis narratives exert a consistent influence on donation amounts. These findings highlight the importance of crisis context and suggest that the factors shaping participation in charitable giving differ from those influencing generosity.

Bio:

Zeki Sarigil (PhD, University of Pittsburgh) is a Professor of Political Science at Bilkent University and a visiting researcher at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include ethnicity, ethnonationalism, and ethnic conflict; institutional theory (e.g., institutional change, path dependence, and informal institutions); civil-military relations; and Turkish politics. He has published articles in such journals as European Political Science Review, European Sociological Review, Journal of Peace Research, and European Journal of International Relations. He is also the author of the following books: 1) “How Informal Institutions Matter: Evidence from Turkish Social and Political Spheres” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023); 2) “Ethnic Boundaries in Turkish Politics: The Secular Kurdish Movement and Islam” (New York: New York University Press, 2018).