Foreign country conspiracy beliefs in separatist conflicts: Their role in fueling blame attribution, delegitimization of separatist group, and symbolic racism

Across 4 correlational studies, using currently unresolved separatist conflicts in West Papua, Indonesia as a contextual background, our work aimed to examine the role of beliefs in foreign country conspiracies in igniting negative reactions of members of a non-separatist society when responding to a political issue. Study 1 ( N = 88) constitutes a preliminary investigation revealing that beliefs in foreign country conspiracies, referring to the extent to which non-separatist members believe that foreign countries have clandestinely backed up the separatist group, positively corresponded to the legitimization of the separatist group as a terrorist organization. In Study 2 ( N = 325), results showed that more beliefs in foreign country conspiracies, in line with Study 1, corresponded to more endorsement of the Indonesian government’s decision to judge the West Papuan separatist group as a terrorist organization. Study 2 also demonstrated that beliefs in foreign country conspiracies translated into generalized negative attitudes towards West Papuan society, manifested in symbolic racism. Study 3 ( N = 497) extended Study 2, showing how blaming the separatist group mediated the role of beliefs in foreign conspiracies as positive antecedents of support for the terrorist label and symbolic racism. Study 4 ( N = 550) replicated Study 3 and additionally found that the positive relationship between beliefs in foreign country conspiracies and symbolic racism was more prominent among high national glorifiers. These findings suggest that negative attitudes toward the separatist movement can be rooted in people’s attribution of the independence movement to a distal, international factor.