How Identity Engineering Backfired in Communist Albania, Eventually

• In Event: Central Europe

Abstract

Did communist-era identity engineering leave a legacy of variation in post-communist identities, beliefs, and behaviors? This article’s results speak to a gap in political legacy research on the origins of variation in post-communist political identities. I probe whether pre-communist ethnic identities or communist-era policies toward identities better explain variation in political identity-related outcomes. Leveraging communist Albania’s dual use of repression and recognition of the Greek minority during its communist period, I theorize that those whose ancestors experienced repression of their identities under communism assimilated during communism but rebelled thereafter. With original evidence surveying first names from Albania’s cemeteries and previously sealed and non-digitized civil registry, I illustrate the striking correspondence between communist-era treatment of minorities (1945-1990) and post-communist identity divergence (1990-2023) in Albania. A regression discontinuity design and time-based controls increase confidence in a causal link. The findings suggest that even in a totalitarian regime, authoritarian attempts to engineer ethnicity can have repercussions that outlast the regime itself.

Author

• Mary Shiraef, University of Notre Dame