 The Consequences of Victimization on Political IdentitiesLaia Balcells Politics & Society, 2012, vol. 40, issue 3, 311-347 Abstract: This article explores the impact of war-related traumatic experiences on political identities and political behavior by exploring different pieces of empirical evidence from the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), the Franco dictatorship (1939–75), and its aftermath. On one hand, the author analyzes semistructured interviews of survivors of the civil war and the dictatorship; on the other hand, she assesses data from a specialized survey implemented on a representative sample of the Spanish population. The analyses broadly suggest that, controlling for family leanings during the civil war, victimization experiences during the civil war and the subsequent dictatorship lead to the rejection of the perpetrators’ identities along the political cleavage that was salient during the war (i.e., left–right). The survey analysis also indicates that (1) although grudges related to severe wartime violations are transmitted through generations, moderate wartime violations do not have such a long-term political impact; (2) the political effects of victimization do not increase with proximity to the traumatic events (i.e., age); and (3) victimization experiences do not have a significant impact on identities along cleavages that were not salient during the war (i.e., center–periphery). Keywords: victimization; civil wars; dictatorship; political identities; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:40:y:2012:i:3:p:311-347 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Politics & Society |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.