Activated History - The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna

Christian Ochsner and Felix Roesel

No 6586, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We study whether long-gone but activated history can shape social attitudes and behavior even after centuries. We exploit the case of the sieges of Vienna in 1529 and 1683, when Turkish troops pillaged individual municipalities across East Austria. In 2005, Austrian right-wing populists started to campaign against Turks and Muslims and explicitly referred to the Turkish sieges. We show that right-wing voting increased in once pillaged municipalities compared to non-pillaged municipalities after the campaigns were launched, but not before. The effects are substantial: Around one out of ten votes for the far-right in a once pillaged municipality is caused by salient history. We conclude that campaigns can act as tipping points and catalyze history in a nonlinear fashion.

Keywords: salience; persistence; right-wing populism; political campaigns; collective memory; Turkish sieges; Austria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 N43 N44 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-his and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Activated History: The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6586

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