Territorial Conquest, Regionalism, and the Assimilation of Elite Identities

• In Event: The Legacies of War on Political Identities and Behavior

Abstract

A common assumption about territorial conquest is that it creates national backlash among the conquered population. I argue that conquest might actually incentivize elites to adopt the identity of the conquering nation. I test the argument on Alsace-Lorraine, a region annexed twice between 1850 and 1938, once by Germany and then by France. Using novel spatial data on historical book publications to capture local elite identities and a difference-in-differences setup, I find that both conquests caused large linguistic shifts toward the language of the conquering state. This assimilation effect was driven by incentives set from both economic opportunities and discriminatory language policy. Moreover, even though regional identities are often seen as signs of failed nation-building, I find that conquest simultaneously led to increased regionalist publications. I argue that the development of stronger regional identity served as a tool for peripheral elites to advocate their interests while assimilating into the conquering nation. These findings shed new light on the common assumption that conflict hardens identities, and improve our understanding the nexus between nation-building and regionalism.

Author

• Roberto Valli, Princeton University