Forced migrant arrivals can reduce political trust in African host communities

• Difference-in-differences analyses show that refugee arrivals may reduce political trust in host communities. • The negative effect is stronger among people with lower education. • It is important to mitigate negative consequences of arrivals in host communities to uphold political legitimacy. Previous research shows that the arrival of forcibly displaced people may have a considerable impact on the economy and on livelihoods within host communities. This is particularly the case in many African countries, which host many of the world’s refugees, but may have limited capacity to handle sudden influxes of people. Yet the bulk of research on refugee arrivals and public opinion is conducted in wealthy, Western contexts. In this article, we start addressing this gap by assessing the effect of forced displacement on trust in national and local authorities. Theoretically, we draw on the literatures on the consequences of forced migration and political trust. Empirically, we rely on seven rounds of georeferenced Afrobarometer data (N = 228,242) combined with data on migrant settlements from the UNHCR People of Concern database to estimate a set of difference-in-differences regression models. We also test whether individual educational attainment moderates the effect of displacement. We find that camp establishment reduces both forms of political trust, and the effect is more pronounced among host community members with less education. This underscores the importance of human development in bolstering the host community’s coping capacity when new camps are established.