Value Similarity and Norm Change: Null Effects and Backlash to Messaging on Same-Sex Rights in Uganda

• Author: Nicholas Lyon
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140221115173
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2023, Vol. 56(5) 694–725

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140221115173

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Value Similarity and

Norm Change: Null

Effects and Backlash to

Messaging on Same-Sex

Rights in Uganda

Nicholas Lyon

1



Abstract

Many socially conservative settings oppose pro-LGBT+ advocacy because of

its perceived threat to “traditional values.”Can messaging on these issues

from sources considered to have similar values be more effective than

messaging from sources considered to have different values? This research

uses the move towards legal protection of certain LGBT+ rights in Angola,

Botswana, Mozambique, and South Africa to understand whether signals of

changing social norms from African sources are better able to shift per-

spectives of those elsewhere on the continent than primes from Western

sources. Using a survey experiment conducted in Uganda, I show that neither

one-off messaging from African sources nor one-off messaging from Western

sources shifts beliefs or behavior on LGBT+ issues. Rather, these messages

produce backlash to both African and Western sources. This work highlights

the challenges of attempting to rapidly change perspectives on LGBT+ issues

in the most socially conservative settings.

Keywords

LGBT+ rights, sexuality and politics, African politics, survey experiment,

Uganda

1

Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nicholas Lyon, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Encina Hall West Suite 100,

Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

Email: njlyon@stanford.edu

In recent decades, the legal status of homosexuality has become politically

salient in Sub-Saharan Africa (Grossman, 2015). During that period, the

debate over sexual identity rights has taken a repressive turn in several

countries in the region. The Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014 made

same-sex activity in the country punishable by life imprisonment and the

Nigerian Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 made same-sex activity

punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

1

Yet the status of LGB rights in the

region is not uniformly moving in a repressive direction.

2

Several countries

have put in place protections for LGB groups: South Africa legalized same-

sex marriage in 2006; Mozambique made employment discrimination on the

basis of sexual orientation illegal in 2007 and legalized same-sex relations in

2015; Angola made housing and employment discrimination on the basis of

sexual orientation illegal in 2015 and legalized same-sex relations in 2019;

and the High Court of Botswana ruled for the decriminalization of same-sex

relations in 2019. Some observers of the region have expressed hopeful

anticipation that these reforms may signal winds of change on the continent,

with other countries soon to follow.

While attitudes towards LGB issues may seem diff‌icult to move given their

association with religious and moral convictions, research has demonstrated

that—in certain contexts—these attitudes can be changed, even in socially

conservative settings (Ayoub et al., 2021). However, the types of activism that

have shown some success in shifting attitudes in North American or European

settings, such as social contact (Lewis, 2011) or Pride events (Ayoub et al.,

2021), are less feasible in contexts such as Nigeria or Uganda where public

visibility carries considerable danger. Given the diff‌iculty of public activism in

environments that are dangerous for LGB people, under what other conditions

might individuals change their outlook on LGB rights? One possible condition

is the legal status of issues concerning sexual identity. Legal change—such as

the decriminalization of same-sex activity or the legalization of same-sex

marriage—might spur greater social acceptance of LGB rights by shifting

individuals’perceptions of prevailing social norms.

3

For instance, Ofosu et al.

(2019) argue that the local legalization of same-sex marriage in the United

States decreased anti-gay bias because legalization provided a signal of

changing social norms. In this research, I investigate whether the recent

examples of legal protections given to LGB individuals in countries such as

Botswana and South Africa can be used to change perspectives elsewhere on

the continent.

There are, of course, countries outside Africa that have guaranteed legal

rights for their LGB populations. But there are reasons to believe that ex-

amples of non-African states might have little resonance in Africa. The debate

around LGB rights in the region is framed by a narrative of the protection of

African values against Western values: in this paper, I suggest that—for norms

pertaining to LGB issues—other African countries may be perceived as in-group

Lyon 695

members and non-African countries as out-group members. Consequently,

information about legal change in other African countries—but not infor-

mation about legal change in Western countries—could provide a signal about

relevant social norms and inf‌luence beliefs and behaviors towards LGB issues.

To investigate whether information about LGB rights in African countries

can change perspectives, I conduct a survey experiment in Uganda that

randomly exposes individuals to messages about LGB issues from both

African and Western sources. This research provides the f‌irst empirical ev-

idence to address the questions of (1) whether informational signals of LGB

rights norms can shift attitudes and behavior in a socially conservative setting

outside of Europe and North America and (2) whether signals from countries

with values that are perceived to be similar are more effective than signals

from countries with values that are perceived to be dissimilar.

This work makes three contributions: (1) it shows that one-off informa-

tional signals from international sources do not directly shift positions towards

LGB issues in this setting; (2) it demonstrates that the source of the signal does

not matter—one-off messages from African and Western sources are equally

ineffective; and (3) it documents a backlash to the reputations of both African

and Western countries when individuals are exposed to this messaging. In the

pursuit of these f‌indings, this research makes several secondary contributions:

(1) a multidimensional descriptive understanding of individuals’attitudes

towards LGB rights in a context with minimal existing public opinion data on

that topic and (2) suggestive evidence that some Ugandans’negative attitudes

towards LGB rights may be driven by social desirability bias.

This paper proceeds by contextualizing the status of LGB rights and at-

titudes in Sub-Saharan Africa; identifying theoretical priors of norm change;

describing the survey experiment used to assess the effect of informational

signals; and reporting results of the experiment. I then discuss the null effects

of the messages on positions towards LGB issues, utilizing the framework

proposed by Alrababa’h et al. (2022) to diagnose potential explanations for

these results. I show that messages about LGB issues from African sources

conveyed new information about the status of LGB rights in the region but that

messages from Western sources did not contain new information due to a high

degree of baseline knowledge. Rather, information about LGB rights pro-

tection in Western settings can be thought of as a priming treatment that makes

this information salient at the time of the survey. The null results for both

treatment arms are considered in light of two potential complications to the

theoretical priors: (1) the role of sustained exposure to messaging about

alternative norms and (2) the relevance of other African countries as a per-

ceived in-group. I conclude with suggestions for future work that would build

on these f‌indings.

696 Comparative Political Studies 56(5)