PhD thesis defence by Sergi Martínez.
This dissertation tests how different conflict experiences impact political identities. The main argument is that community or collective experiences such as indiscriminate violence may raise ingroup identification and backfire on the perpetrator’s interest by increasing victims’ keenness to outgroup threat narratives. This is particularly the case when compared to atomizing conflict experiences such as selective repression, which relies on denunciations from neighbours and can deter social life. While a long-standing theoretical literature supports this argument, the main contribution of this dissertation is empirical. I put this argument to the test in three stand-alone articles employing a comparative approach. The first article discusses the effect of indiscriminate vis-a-vis selective fascist repression executed during the Spanish civil war in the Basque Country. Municipalities that received fascist airstrikes, an instance of indiscriminate repression, were more likely to support Basque nationalist parties after the democratic transition. Instead, selective repression based on denunciations reduced Basque nationalist votes.
The second paper tests whether the selectiveness of individualized Francoist repression in Galicia shaped its political consequences. I find that a greater capacity to restrict repression to the most-wanted impelled an indoctrination effect on the regime by ensuring its monopoly over narratives. Fascist policies and post-authoritarian successor parties received more votes wherever Francoist repression focused on leftist civic leaders with high human capital.
The third article, alternatively, explores the impact of a conflict resolution agreement concerning an international confrontation over the monopoly of symbolic capital. In joint work with Vicente Valentim and Elias Dinas, we look at the political consequences of the Prespa Agreement, the treaty solving the naming dispute between (henceforth) North Macedonia and Greece. Concessions made by the Greek prime minister on symbolic capital increased nationalism. The treaty boosted public expressions of national identity in Athens and, especially in Thessaloniki, where the increase of radical right-wing votes contributed to its permanence on the national parliament.
This dissertation contributes to the literature on post-conflict political behaviors by adding a nuanced, local understanding of the nature of a conflict to predict its political consequences and mechanisms of transmission of this effect.
Sergi Martínez is a political scientist working on comparative politics, political violence, and political culture. He is particularly interested in how political behavior results from conflict and social norms. In September 2022, Sergi will move to Princeton University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Politics.