2017/12/04 by Dino Hadzic, David Carlson, Margit Tavits · 113 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Affect (linguistics) #Argument (complex analysis) #Cohesion (chemistry) #Community cohesion #Criminology #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Demographic economics #Distrust #Economics #Ethnic conflict #Ethnic group #Ethnic violence #Law #Political Conflict and Governance #Political economy #Political science #Political violence #Politics #Psychology #Religion and Society Interactions #Social psychology #Sociology #Voting
paper · doi:10.1017/s0007123417000448
published in British Journal of Political Science 50(1), 345-362 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2017/12/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
How does wartime exposure to ethnic violence affect the political preferences of ordinary citizens? Are high-violence communities more or less likely to reject the politicization of ethnicity post-war? We argue that community-level experience with wartime violence solidifies ethnic identities, fosters intra-ethnic cohesion and increases distrust toward non-co-ethnics, thereby making ethnic parties the most attractive channels of representation and contributing to the politicization of ethnicity. Employing data on wartime casualties at the community level and pre- as well as post-war election results in Bosnia, we find strong support for this argument. The findings hold across a number of robustness checks. Using post-war survey data, we also provide evidence that offers suggestive support for the proposed causal mechanism.