Names and behavior in a war

Abstract

We implement a novel empirical strategy for measuring and studying a strong form of nationalism-the willingness to fight and die in a war for national independenceusing name choices corresponding to a previous war leader. Based on data on almost half a million soldiers, we first show that having been given a first name that is synonymous with the leader(s) of the Croatian state during World War II predicts volunteering for service in the 1991-1995 Croatian war of independence and dying during the conflict. Next, we use the universe of Croatian birth certificates and the information about nationalism conveyed by first names to suggests that in ex-Yugoslav Croatia, nationalism rose continuously starting in the 1970s and that its rise was curbed in areas where concentration camps were located during WWII. Our evidence on intergenerational transmission of nationalism is consistent with nationalist fathers purposefully reflecting the trade-off between within-family and society-wide transmission channels of political values. We also link the nationalist values we proxy using first name choices to right-wing voting behavior in 2015, 20 years after the war.

Forced Migration, Staying Minorities, and New Societies: Evidence from Postwar Czechoslovakia

“…In comparison, our evidence suggests that a small group of stayers, i.e., non-migrants, with strong political values is also sufficiently powerful to influence political outcomes in newly formed societies. The findings by Ochsner and Roesel (2020) and by Arbatli and Gomtsyan (2019) are consistent with the transmission of far-right and nationalist political values, respectively, across several generations, in line with a growing body of research highlighting the persistence of far-right political values (for example, Voigtländer and Voth, 2012;Cantoni et al, 2020;Jurajda and Kovač, 2021). 9 Our study supports the notion that far-left political values are similarly strongly transmitted across generations, and can survive transitions across political and economic systems as well as ethnic cleansing episodes.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, we provide the first evidence implying that a small minority of stayers can affect a society's values and political attitudes after ethnic cleansing. Our evidence on the spatial persistence of far-left preferences complements that on far-right political values (Cantoni, Hagemeister, and Westcott 2020;Jurajda and Kovač 2021;Ochsner and Roesel 2020;Voigtländer and Voth 2012). Our ability to look across regime change and contrast the intergenerational transmission of values with the "small seed" long-term effects of stayer elites extends previous work on political leaders within political systems (Ochsner and Roesel 2020;Dippel and Heblich 2021).…”

Forced Migration, Staying Minorities, and New Societies: Evidence from Post-war Czechoslovakia

“…In comparison, our evidence suggests that a small group of stayers, i.e., non-migrants, with strong political values is also sufficiently powerful to influence political outcomes in newly formed societies. The findings by Ochsner and Roesel (2020) and by Arbatli and Gomtsyan (2019) are consistent with the transmission of far-right and nationalist political values, respectively, across several generations, in line with a growing body of research highlighting the persistence of far-right political values (for example, Voigtländer and Voth, 2012;Cantoni et al, 2020;Jurajda and Kovač, 2021). 9 Our study supports the notion that far-left political values are similarly strongly transmitted across generations, and can survive transitions across political and economic systems as well as ethnic cleansing episodes.…”

Ethnic Bias after Ethnic Conflict: Preferential Voting and the Serb Minority in Croatian Elections

“… 6 For a good comparison with a work focused on Croatia, one can consult Jurajda and Kovač ( 2021 ). They derive ethnic identity using calendars of the Catholic (Croat) and Orthodox (Serb) churches.…”