Family Repression and Political Mobilization: Evidence from Eastern Europe

• In Event: Effects of Historical Legacies and Narratives on Contemporary Public Opinion in the Post-Communist Space

Abstract

How does state repression affect political participation among the children and grandchildren of victims? What are the mechanisms by which these effects persist across generations? Existing studies of the intergenerational effects of repression tend to use geographic measures of repression and focus on a single case, making it difficult to draw more generalizable conclusions. In this paper, I draw on cross-national survey data to study the legacies of family repression in 29 former communist countries. I find that people whose family members suffered repression under communism are much more politically active than those who did not, especially when it comes to unconventional politics like demonstrations and strikes. I show that socialization to particular political attitudes does not seem to drive this result, but investment in physical and human capital may be an important mechanism. To address concerns about misreporting and the endogeneity of repression, I match a subset of the survey data to an “objective” measure of communist repression and conduct additional analyses to control for “pre-treatment'” confounders. My research sheds light on the microfoundations that explain why authoritarian repression has such durable consequences for politics, even after regime change.

Author

• Isabelle DeSisto, Princeton U