How Historical Trauma Affects Civilian Wartime Support

• In Event: Historical Legacies: Tracing the Origins of Political Behavior

Abstract

Scholars have shown that civilian support is crucial to the success of armed groups, but do not theorize where this support comes from. Extending this literature, I argue that the legacy of trauma predicts civilian behavior -- both individual and collective -- in providing aid to warmakers in a subsequent conflict. I test this argument by estimating the effect of the Holodomor, a 1930s starvation in Ukraine enforced by Soviet Russia, on noncombatant mobilization in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Using original data, I show that in districts where the Holodomor losses were greater there is more community and individual level support for the Ukrainian military in its current conflict with Russia. These districts have created more organizations that provide wartime aid to the Ukrainian military and civilians in these districts also contribute more individually than is the case in districts with fewer Holodomor losses. My findings suggest that historical trauma encourages noncombatant participation in warmaking generations later.

Author

• Taylor Jane Damann, Washington University in St. Louis