Results of "One Year After Bin Laden" Poll

[CWOT]

All,


Again, thanks for voting and here's the results of the second tabulation of the "1 Year Post Bin Laden" Poll. For the full writeup and charts see this link at Selected Wisdom: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=760

In this second published result of the "1 Year After Bin Laden" Poll, I decided to focus on a question that is somewhat relevant to the current debate in the media following recent events in Libya.

On May 2, 2011, several hundred respondents answered a question with regards to what would be the "Chief Consequence of Bin Laden's death?".

Two of the potential responses provided for what might happen in the wake of Bin Laden's death were:

--"AQ Central plots against the U.S. and its allies increase substantially" - of which 12 votes were cast (4th highest response) and more than 20% of Private Sector voters and a little more than 5% of government voters selected.

---"AQ Central plots against the U.S. and its allies decrease substantially" - of which 7 votes were cast from a mix of professional backgrounds.
To examine the efficacy of the crowdsourcing prediction generated on May 2, 2011, I did an assessment with the "1 Year Post Bin Laden" poll executed on May 2, 2012 asking:

"Since Usama Bin Laden's death, have al Qaeda Central directed plots against the U.S. and its allies increased or decreased?"

In total, 206 people answered this question and the majority of respondents (71%) stated that al Qaeda Central plots against the U.S. had decreased over the past year.

Here are the results in a chart broken down by professional groups. Below this chart is the breakdown of votes per demographic group and percentage of each. Note, each professional group depicted in the first chart has a different number of total votes. For example, there were 30 ‘Private Sector’ voters but only 4 ‘Media and Journalism’ voters so the percentages in the chart will fluctuate greatly with each vote in those professional groups with low cell counts.

For professional groups, here’s what I found to be interesting results:

--‘Government-Contractors’ and ‘Government – Non-Military’ were more likely than average to think that plots increased over the past year while ‘Government-Military’ were more likely than average to think that plots had decreased over the past year.

--‘Private Sector’ voters were less likely than average to think that plots increased over the past year, yet ‘Private Sector’ voters immediately following Bin Laden’s death were the most likely to select that ‘AQ plots will increase’.
....
After building the professional group charts, I went through and tabulated the raw vote and percentages for all demographic factors to include professional group, education level, preferred information source and residency. This produced the most interesting results. Below is a chart and I highlighted particular lines of interest in different colors. Those lines in green represent groups that were less likely than average to believe that AQ plots had increased over the past year. Those lines in yellow represent groups that were more likely than average to believe that AQ plots had increased. Overall, here is what I found interesting and I’d like to hear what readers think about these results.

--Those that prefer getting their information on al Qaeda from ‘Social Media’ and ‘Television’ were far more likely to believe AQ Central plots against the U.S. had increased since Bin Laden’s death. Meanwhile, those reading ‘Academic Publications’ and ‘Newspapers’ were less likely than average to believe AQ plots had increased after Bin Laden’s death. Assuming the crowd vote of 70% against is correct, this may suggest that social media and television create an amplification effect making every individual attack seem like many attacks. A common argument about the 9/11 attacks and cable TV news was that the constant replaying of the 9/11 attacks resulted in the public believing terrorism was more pervasive than it actually was. Viewers watching endless replays of the attacks began to subconsciously believe there were more threats than there actually were. I personally feel this same effect from social media where Twitter, Blogs and newsfeeds create circular, redundant reporting that makes it difficult to determine the severity and frequency of attacks and true strength of threats. We’ve also seen this with domestic extremism in the States. Essentially, if one looks for and reads about terror attacks all day, they’ll find a lot of threats – aka “Threat Myopia”. Likewise, I wonder if in depth research findings from academic publications and the broader perspective of newspapers has the reverse effect on the information consumer. All just theories but an interesting result form the survey data.

---Strangely, those with at least 2 years living outside the U.S. and E.U. were slightly more likely to believe that AQ plots had increased. I would have expected the reverse, but the difference is very slight and only slightly above the average of all voters.

For full charts and graphs visit: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=760

[CWOT]

On the day of Bin Laden’s death, May 2, 2011, two of the options provided to survey respondents of the question “What will be the chief consequence of Osama Bin Laden’s death?” related to al Qaeda’s financing. Essentially, would the terror group’s funding rise or decline with the loss of its key leader and chief financier. Here were the results of the two options in the days immediately following Bin Laden’s death:

“al Qaeda fundraising increases substantially” - only 1 ‘Government’ voter from a total of 152 responses selected this as the chief consequence.
“al Qaeda fundraising diminishes substantially” – only 6 of 152 voters selected this option with the largest professional groups being 2 each of ‘Private Sector’ and ‘Government’ voters.

For the full results of this question from 2011, see this post.

A year after Bin Laden’s death, (May 2, 2012) 209 respondents answered this question:

“Since Usama Bin Laden’s death, has al Qaeda fundraising increased of decreased?”

Overall, almost 80% of respondents said al Qaeda’s financing had decreased in the year since Bin Laden’s death while the remaining 20% believed al Qaeda’s financing had increased in the year since Bin Laden’s death. In comparison, voters, on average, were more likely to believe al Qaeda’s funding had decreased (80%) than al Qaeda’s attacks had decreased (70%). But according to the crowd, both have declined.

The following chart shows the breakdown of votes by percentage of each professional group. Again, a note of caution, some professional groups had only a small number of respondents so the percentages may appear artificially large. Below the chart is a table which breaks out the raw vote totals by demographic group. Here’s what I found interesting about the professional groups: (See this link for full charts: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=772)

‘Government Contractors’ were more likely than ‘Military’ voters to select “fundraising increased”.

Those that did not declare their professional background and ‘Academia’ were most likely to say that al Qaeda’s funding had decreased since Bin Laden’s death.

After examining the professional groups, I broke down the responses of each group by education level, preferred information source and residency. In the last set of results (#2), the preferred information source of respondents appeared to correlate with respondents’ interpretation of an increase or decrease in al Qaeda attacks. In these results (#3), I found the following vote breakdown to be of the most interest.

For education level, those with Doctoral degrees were more inclined than other education levels to believe that al Qaeda funding had increased since Bin Laden’s death.

The comparison of residency provided the most interesting results for comparison. Those ‘born outside the U.S.’ or currently ‘residing outside the U.S.’ were the most likely to believe al Qaeda’s funding has decreased since Bin Laden’s death. Meanwhile, those individuals that have lived cumulatively outside the U.S. and E.U. for two years or more were slightly more likely than average and twice as likely as those currently residing outside the U.S. to believe al Qaeda’s fundraising has increased in the year since Bin Laden’s death. A strange paradox that I need to spend a little more time researching, but interesting nonetheless.

Here’s the full breakdown in a table. In yellow are lines that I marked as interesting for being higher than average and in green are lines I marked as interesting for being lower than average. See this link for the charts: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=772

For the full write up and charts, see this link: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=772

Next results will cover which AQ affiliate receives the most funding after Bin Laden's death.

[CWOT]

All,

Again, thanks for participating in the Post UBL Poll. Here's the latest results from your efforts.

In my opinion, one of the most critical questions after the death of Osama Bin Laden was where would donor funding to al Qaeda go after the death of the group's leader? Last year, after Bin Laden's death, voters (40%) forecasted that Gulf donor funds would shift to AQAP in Yemen. However, an interesting contrast occurred with 'Private Sector' voters, who using their experience with business and money, noted that it may instead be "Emerging Islamist Groups in North Africa amongst the Arab Spring" that receive a boost in funding. Another interesting finding from the spring of 2011 was from the week prior to Bin Laden's death where voters believed funding would remain focused on supporting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The implication of these two forecasts appeared clear: Bin Laden was central to drawing donor support from the Gulf. For the full results of last year's forecast, see this link.

A year later, on May 2, 2012, I asked the following question:

Since Usama Bin Laden's death, the largest portion of Gulf donor contributions to extremism have gone to:

-al Shabaab in Somalia to create an alternate safe haven for AQ
-AQ in Iraq to counter Iraq's Shia dominated government
-AQ in Pakistan & the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan to sustain AQ Central
-AQAP in Yemen as a more viable group proximate to the Gulf
-AQIM to help them exploit North African insecurity
-Islamist groups vying for power amongst North African uprisings
-Other

Overall, 'AQAP in Yemen' received the most votes across the board (40%) and the majority of every professional group. After AQAP in Yemen, just under 20% of voters voters selected 'AQ in Afghanistan and Pakistan' and 'Emerging Islamist Groups in North Africa' - an interesting result that concurs with the forecasts of the 'Private Sector' voters last year. Essentially, voters thought the investment in an emerging al Qaeda affiliate was of equal value to backing the old original leaders of al Qaeda in Pakistan. Here are the results for each professional category across all groups surveyed. I went with raw vote totals for this graph and the vote totals and percentages for all demographics is below in a table.

In the following table (See website), I've totaled the votes of each demographic for each terror affiliate and percentage of votes from each demographic breakdown selecting each terror affiliate. In green I've highlighted a couple demographic breakdowns where the voting pattern is slightly different and higher with regards to 'AQAP in Yemen'.

-'Academia' was more likely than the average and more likely than other professional groups to select 'AQAP in Yemen'. 'Academia' was also less enthralled with 'Emerging Islamist Groups' than other professional groups.
-Likewise, those that chose 'Newspapers' as their primary information source also selected 'AQAP in Yemen' at a slightly higher rate than the average. This also makes me wonder if newspapers have been reporting on AQAP in Yemen more than other threats. Don't know, just a theory.
Highlighted in yellow are lines where votes were lower than average for AQAP.

Military voters selected 'AQAP in Yemen' less than any other group. In fact, 'Military' voters selected 'AQAP in Yemen', 'AQIM in Sahel' and 'AQ in AFPAK' at roughly the same rate. Maybe they know something the rest of us don't know.
For charts and graphs, see this link: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=786

[CWOT]

All,

As always, thanks for voting. Here is the 5th round of results thanks to your contributions. For the full analysis and charts see this link.

Beginning on May 2, 2012, I wanted to find out two things with regards to one question.

How supportive were voters to a Western intervention in Syria similar to the support provided to the Libyan resistance to overthrow Qaddafi?

How susceptible were voters to the bias of loss aversion? Much of the debate surrounding a Syrian intervention centers on the fear of military weapons and aid falling into the hands of al Qaeda affiliated individuals and groups. Dan Ariely describes in his books, The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational, how fear of losses can loom larger than gains thus influencing our decisions with regards to risk. Having backed militias in Afghanistan that later provided the seeds for al Qaeda, the U.S. national debate with regards to backing the Libyan rebellion and now the Syrian uprising continually echoes with fears of "What if terrorists get our weapons?" - a justifiable fear.

To test these two things with one question, I've conducted a several month long experiment here at this blog via the "1 Year After Bin Laden" poll beginning on May 2, 2012 and a series of blog posts (#1,#2,#3,#4,#5,#6) during the months of August through October. These blog posts used a variety of framing techniques designed to skew voting results with regards to 'loss aversion' testing (BTW - only @jeremyscahill - a journalist of course - called me out on my ridiculous framing of some of the questions). The experiment and results come in two parts.

Experiment iteration #1 - Last question of the "1 Year After Bin Laden" survey - May 2, 2012 through July 16, 2012

Beginning on May 2, 2012, I distributed the "1 Year After Bin Laden" survey in a variety of venues. However, there were two versions of this survey. Some respondents (90 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting Syria.

With regards to the current uprising in Syria, should the U.S. and European nations provide weapons, training and funding to the rebellion against the Assad regime if they can guarantee that 95% of all support will be gained by resistance fighters with no demonstrated connection to or ideological affinity for al Qaeda?

Some respondents (106 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting Syria - a question designed to frame the issue in terms of losses. The hypothesis being those who receive the question referencing 'loss of support to al Qaeda' would select the choice to "not support the Syrian rebellion" at a higher rate. Here's the alternate question.

With regards to the current uprising in Syria, should the U.S. and European nations provide weapons, training and funding to the rebellion against the Assad regime even if 5% of all support provided would be lost to resistance fighters with a demonstrated connection and ideological affinity for al Qaeda?

Results Experiment #1: In this first experiment, I detected no sense of loss aversion skewing respondent choices with regards to supporting the Syrian resistance. It didn't matter which question voters received, they selected "Yes" or "No" in roughly the same distribution regardless of question context. The overall balance of votes was 39% saying "Yes, we should support the rebels" and 61% saying "No, we should not support the rebels." In fact, those that received the loss aversion question were slightly more likely to select "Yes, we should support the rebels." I'll have more analysis of these results below, but here is the breakdown chart of professional group votes for the Syria support question during the months of May through July. Interesting points were:

'Academia' voters were most likely to reject the notion of supporting the Syrian resistance.
'Military' voters were more inclined to support the Syrian resistance even if some support were lost to people affiliated with al Qaeda.
See the link for charts with results of Experiment #1: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=793

Experiment iteration #2 - Single question posted at "Selected Wisdom" - August 27, 2012 through October 18, 2012

After analyzing the results from the "1 Year After Bin Laden" poll, I wondered if question wording, structure or placement made the bias of loss aversion not emerge. Starting at the end of August, I decided to run this experiment again to look for 1) whether loss aversion was present with respondent choices and 2) if overall support for a Syrian intervention had changed since media coverage of Syria fighting became more profuse in recent months.

Through a series of blog posts on Syria and distribution of links on Twitter, several respondents (42 in total) answered this question with regards to supporting the Syrian resistance.

Should the U.S. and European nations back and resource the rebellion against the Assad regime in Syria if 95% of all support will be gained by resistance fighters with no connection to or affinity for al Qaeda?

Alternatively, some blog posts and Twitter links received answers to a different question (40 in total) with regards to their support for backing the Syrian resistance - again the hypothesis being those who receive the question referencing 'loss of support to al Qaeda' would select the choice to "not" support the Syrian rebellion at a higher rate.

Should the U.S. and European nations back and resource the rebellion against the Assad regime in Syria if 5% of all support will be lost to fighters connected to or aligned with al Qaeda?

Results Experiment #2: In the second experiment, despite significant changes in the intensity of the Syrian conflict, elapse of time, question framing, etc., I received almost the exact same results as in experiment #1. I detected no 'loss aversion' bias. Again, the overall balance of votes was 39% saying "Yes, we should support the rebels" and 61% saying "No, we should not support the rebels." A quick caveat, some of the voters to the second experiment were assuredly the same as those that voted in the first experiment. However, a significant amount were different as I used different and more dissemination platforms in the second experiment to gather an alternative sample. I'll post more cumulative analysis below, but here is a chart showing the results of experiment #2 from August 27, 2012 through October 18, 2012.

See the link for charts with results of Experiment #2:

So, what does this all mean? I have lots of theories but a definitive answer would require more experimentation. Here are some of my initial thoughts: http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=793

The crowd showed no real bias towards 'loss aversion'. Looking at the table below, across the board respondents of all demographic breakdowns were generally split at a rate of 40% for intervention ('Yes' -Votes) and 60% against intervention ('No'- Votes) with one notable exception in yellow.

I believe the resistance to 'loss aversion', assuming I properly crafted the questions, results from a highly educated audience that knows a considerable bit about counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and national security in general. Respondent knowledge of the topic helps them offset against question framing and arrive at decisions more analytically in this context. This doesn't mean that if you asked the same audience 'loss aversion' questions about the stock market, for example, that they would be equally resistant. My guess would be I along with many of the respondents would be much more prone to a 'loss aversion' bias if queried on subjects for which we have limited knowledge and less data from which to offset the fear of losses.

The 'loss aversion' question in the context of a Syrian intervention may not have worked because many I have talked to, and several respondents noted below, have a definitive ideological stance about foreign intervention of any kind. Essentially, many I talk to reference getting involved in Syria quickly retort with "we should never get involved in these foreign interventions, look what happened in Libya (Iraq, Afghanistan, fill in the blank)." Others will quickly respond with, "we intervened in Libya, so why shouldn't we help out the Syrians?" I believe individual respondent stance on foreign intervention in general overrides any bias detection injected by me through question structure. Whether its Syria or any country, respondents have a pre-determined position on interventions.

Those identifying 'Social Media' as their primary information source were more against intervention on average. Meanwhile, those that prefer 'Newspapers' seemed more balanced in their support for or against an intervention in Syria.
Those preferring 'Television' as their primary information source (a small sample) were ironically more supportive of intervention in Syria. Is this because television portrayals provide more sympathy to the opposition and relate atrocities to the viewer in a different way? No idea, but interesting.

The most interesting result is in yellow and relates to whether respondents live in and around the Washington DC metropolitan area. Those residing around the nation's capital were 20% more likely to be against a Syrian intervention than those that are currently living outside the beltway. How about that? What do folks in DC believe that the rest of the U.S. and world perceives differently?

See the link for the full results, data tables and charts. http://selectedwisdom.com/?p=793

Thanks for voting,

Clint