United State, Government, Africa 

The United States government has adopted new approaches to counter violent
extremist organizations around the world. ‘‘Soft security’’ and development programs
include focused educational training for groups vulnerable to terrorist recruitment,
norm messaging through local radio programming, and job creation in rural
communities. This article evaluates the effectiveness of one set of these multivectored,
community-level programs through data from 200 respondents in two
similar, neighboring towns in northern Mali, Africa. The data show that residents
in Timbuktu who were exposed to the programming for up to five years displayed
measurably altered civic behavior and listening patterns in comparison with their
counterparts in the control town of Dire´, which had no programming (controlling
for potential covariates including age, ethnicity, and political and socioeconomic
conditions). However, there was little measurable difference between the groups
in terms of their cultural identities and attitudes towards the West. While this study
is unable to definitively prove a causal connection between programming and behavioral
outcomes, it nonetheless strongly suggests that the process of ‘‘winning hearts
and minds’’ can be effective at certain levels but may require extended time and
dedicated resources to generate higher-level results 

24 p.; illus.; 24 cm