Commemorating Victims of Past Atrocities in Neighborhoods Decreases Far-Right Support Over Time

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

In the framework of the EUI Political Behaviour Colloquium, this seminar features a paper presentation by Oguzhan Turkoglu, Postdoctoral Researcher at Hertie School.

Does public remembrance of past atrocities relate to decreased support for far-right parties today? Initiatives commemorating past atrocities often aim to affect political behavior in support of democracy and pluralism in the present. Yet, little empirical evidence exists whether that happens. In this study, we examine if exposure to local memorials that commemorate victims of atrocities reduces support for far-right parties. Our empirical case is the Stolpersteine ( stumbling stones ) counter-memorial in Berlin, Germany. It commemorates victims and survivors of Nazi persecution in front of their last freely chosen place of residence. We employ various analytical strategies from time-series cross-sectional analyses to a discontinuity design using a novel panel dataset that matches the location and date of placement of new Stolpersteine with the election results from seven elections (2013-2021) at the level of polling station areas. We find that, on average, the presence of Stolpersteine is associated with a 0.96%-point decrease in the far-right vote share in the following election. Our study suggests that counter-memorials reduce local far-right support. The finding demonstrates how social representations of history can impact political behaviour in the present.

Co-authors: Ruth Ditlmann (Hertie School) and Berenike Firestone (Columbia University)