Biased Altruism: Islamophobia and Donor Support for Global Humanitarian Organizations

• Date: 01 January 2019
• Author: Joannie Tremblay‐Boire,Aseem Prakash
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13012
• Published date: 01 January 2019

Biased Altruism: Islamophobia and Donor Support for Global Humanitarian Organizations 113

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 1, pp. 113–124. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13012.

Abstract: Providing humanitarian assistance to displaced individuals is a critical policy challenge. Many refugee

camps are run by charities supported by Western donors. If refugees are predominantly Muslim, might Islamophobia

suppress donations to these charities? Using a survey experiment conducted in the United States, the authors examine

whether donors’ willingness to support a charity is influenced by the dominant religion of the refugees, the regions in

which refugee camps are located, and/or the religious affiliation of the charity. The authors find modest support for

Islamophobia: while willingness to donate is not affected by the location of camps or the predominance of Muslim

refugees, it declines significantly for Islamic charities. Respondents overall tend to be especially willing to donate to

a charity that serves Christian refugees in the Middle East. Among self-identifying Christians, respondents are more

willing to donate to a charity serving Christian refugees than one serving Muslim refugees.

Evidence for Practice

• Global public policy suffers from an institutional deficit in the provision of short-term help to international

refugees.

• Charities play a critical role in addressing this institutional deficit. They raise substantial donations from

individuals in Western countries to provide help to refugees.

• Despite concerns about Islamophobia in the United States, individual donors in this study do not treat

charities catering to Muslim refugees differently than charities catering to refugees of all faiths when making a

donation.

• Donors are more interested in giving to charities catering to Christian refugees, especially in the Middle East.

• American donors are less favorably inclined toward charities that profess the Islamic faith.

Joannie Tremblay-Boire

University of Maryland

Aseem Prakash

University of Washington, Seattle

Biased Altruism: Islamophobia and Donor Support for

Global Humanitarian Organizations

Wars and natural disasters cause large-scale

human displacement within and across

countries. The scale of the challenge

is staggering: about 65.6 million individuals are

displaced worldwide, and 20 people are forcibly

displaced every minute (UNHCR 2017). According

to a Pew Research Center report (Connor and

Krogstad 2016), “nearly 1 in 100 individuals in

the world are now displaced from their homes.”

The picture of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian

child whose dead body washed up on a beach in

Turkey, symbolizes the unacceptable toll of the

refugee crisis. Displaced individuals (such as refugees)

often find shelter in camps run by charities and

intergovernmental organizations such as the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Both charities and the UNCHR seek donations from

households to operate these camps.

Americans tend to support charitable work generously.

In 2016, U.S. charities received $390 billion in

total giving, of which donations by U.S. households

amounted to about $280 billion or 72 percent (Giving

USA 2017). Six percent of total household giving ($22

billion) was directed to international charities (Giving

USA 2017). A vast body of literature examines factors

that motivate individuals to donate and how some

causes attract more donations than others (Bekkers

and Wiepking 2011; Gittell and Tebaldi 2006).

However, little systematic work focuses on how donors

differentiate among potential recipients within the

context of a given cause. After all, willingness to donate

to a cause might be endogenous to the characteristics

of the individuals benefiting from this giving (Barman

2008). For example, donors to universities sometimes

earmark their funds to help students with specific

characteristics. If universities did not allow donors to

do so, this might lead to a decline in giving, at least at

the margin (Eckel, Herberich, and Meer 2017).

In this article, we examine charitable giving in the

context of a specific cause: helping overseas refugees

Aseem Prakash is professor of political

science and Walker Family Professor

in the College of Arts and Sciences,

University of Washington, Seattle. His

recent awards include the International

Studies Association’s 2018 James N.

Rosenau Award for the “scholar who has

made the most important contributions to

globalization studies” and the European

Consortium for Political Research Standing

Group on Regulatory Governance’s 2018

Regulatory Studies Development Career

Award for notable “contributions to the

field of regulatory governance.”

E-mail: aseem@uw.edu

Research Article

Joannie Tremblay-Boire is assistant

professor in the School of Public Policy,

University of Maryland, College Park. Her

research centers on nongovernmental

organizations, nonprofits, and foundations.

Her work has appeared in

Public

Administration Review, Nonprofit and

Voluntary Sector Quarterly,

and

Voluntas

.

E-mail: jboire@umd.edu