Geopolitics and Perceptions of Historical Victimisation and Resistance

• In Event: Strategies of Shaping Peoples and States

Abstract

How do present beliefs shape people’s perceptions of their own past? Specifically, to what extent do people’s perceptions of historical victimisation, resistance, and oppression reflect their beliefs of today? There is a growing body of work examining how memories of violence in the past shape a range of present-day outcomes: political trust, political affiliation, identity, and participation, as well as reconciliation and nationalism. Yet if people’s memories of the past can be shaped by their present-day attitudes, then it is possible that these causal relationships can be turned on their head. There are at least two possible mechanisms for why the present should shape perceptions of the past. First, people may emphasize certain events as central to their history or not know the details of others, historical violence in particular, because of present-day social stigma or desirability. Second, work in social psychology on ‘motivated reasoning’ argues that people with strong biases arrive at self-serving conclusions. Thus, rather than taking memories of historical events, in particular historical violence, as an explanatory variable, we study it as an outcome variable. We do so as part of a large interdisciplinary project on “With Russia or Not,” in which we have developed and conduced public opinion surveys of geopolitical orientations of the populations in 13 of the states and de facto states in Russia’s “near abroad.” The former Soviet space is an ideal testing ground because many of the post-Soviet states (and de facto states) find themselves in an information competition with Russia over the framing of their past, the so-called “memory wars.” A growing body of research highlights how political elites in Russia, in various ways, have tried to influence the populations in the “near abroad” and promote an image of the “Russian world.” Yet it is not a given that these efforts have the effect of (re)orienting people’s perceptions of their ‘own’ national narratives. Political elites and populations in some of the former Soviet republics see these efforts at threatening to their hard-won national identity and have sought to distance themselves from Russia. Indeed, individuals in the former Soviet space find themselves torn between opposing narratives. As such, the former Soviet space provides fertile testing ground to explore how individuals downplay or emphasize the historical experiences of their community in line with their geopolitical orientations of the day. We rely on a two-pronged research strategy. First, we seek to determine which historical events people emphasize as central to their country, whether this event can be considered part of a pro-Russian or nationalist narrative, and what drives a preference for one narrative over another. Second, through an experimental set-up, we seek to explore if clear attribution of blame will shape how people view their own history of suffering.

Authors

• Kristin Marie Bakke, University College London

• Christopher Rickard, Mr

• John V. O'Loughlin, University of Colorado

• Gerard Toal, Virginia Tech