Children of Violence: Victims in the Shadow of Conflict

• In Event: The Political Ramifications of Violence

Abstract

Experiences of political violence sometimes shape the political identities of victims and their descendants. But there is a great deal of variation across contexts. What kinds of experiences of violence do and do not leave lasting intergenerational effects on the political identities of victims and their descendants? We argue that different contexts and types of violence have different kinds of effects, and we focus especially on the roles of blame attribution and ethnic targeting. In particular, we argue that when victims perceive that the violence they experience is perpetrated by an ethnic out-group and targeted against them because of their ethnicity, we will see exposure to violence increase ethnic identities and produce victim identities – and that these strengthened identities will then be transmitted within families to children and grandchildren through socialization. In contrast, exposure to violence that is not perpetrated by an ethnic out-group or ethnically targeted will not have the same effects. We test our argument by comparing evidence from four multigenerational surveys we fielded in Crimea, Cambodia, and Guatemala, leveraging differences both across cases and across types of violence within cases.

Authors

• Noam Lupu, Vanderbilt University

• Leonid Peisakhin, New York University - Abu Dhabi