Comparing religious and secular interventions to increase young adult political participation: Evidence from WhatsApp-based civic education courses in Zambia

It is often assumed that, in highly religious environments, religious messages that promote political participation will more effectively influence behavior than nonreligious messages with the same goal. To our knowledge, however, this assumption remains untested. We present results from a community-collaborative study implemented prior to elections in Zambia, an overwhelmingly Christian country with a youth-skewed population. We randomized young adults into different versions of a WhatsApp-based civics course and compared outcomes after exposure to civic information only versus after civic information accompanied by either religious or nonreligious messages that promote self-efficacy and grit. Because Zambia is a highly religious country, we expected the religious course to have the largest effect. Instead, the nonreligious efficacy-boosting course did. The religious course performed no better than the information-only condition. This study cautions against assuming the efficacy of religious messages, even in highly religious contexts, and identifies new questions for future research.