Legacies of History and Contemporary Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel brings together some of the latest empirical and conceptual research on the impact of history on contemporary politics in Europe. Charnysh and Piqué explore the effects of Nazi repression in Poland, leveraging variation in institutional landscapes in the different occupation zones. They find that heterogeneity in repression practices had major impact on voter behavior, religiosity, and population structures. Projects by Balcells & Villamil and Barceló and Peisakhin problematize the assumption that exposure to violence leads directly to a predictable shift in behavior. Balcells and Villamil explore the complex interplay between historical violence and media coverage and the resultant political polarization. Barceló and Peisakhin show how historical memory is often shaped by political entrepreneurs and not by actual experience of violence. Wittenberg provides a conceptual overview of how social scientists think about persistence and change and stresses that some change is identity-destroying and other identity-preserving. The aim of the panel is to assess the current state of the literature and to problematize some of the dominant assumptions in this active research agenda.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Chair

• Vasiliki Fouka Stanford University

Discussants

• Vasiliki Fouka Stanford University

• Arturas Rozenas New York University

Individual Presentations

• The Enduring Effect of Nazi Repression in Poland - Volha Charnysh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ricardo Pique, Ryerson University

• Post-conflict Manipulation of Historical Memory and the Legacy of Violence - Joan Barcelo, New York University Abu Dhabi; Leonid V. Peisakhin, New York University - Abu Dhabi

• Issues, Media, and Polarization in Spain - Laia Balcells, Georgetown University; Juan Fernando Tellez, University of California, Davis; Francisco Villamil, Carlos III University of Madrid

• Understanding Historical Persistence - Jason Wittenberg, University of California, Berkeley