The burden of a violent past: formative experiences of repression and support for secession in Catalonia

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• dc.contributor.author Rodon i Casarramona, Antoni
• dc.contributor.author Tormos, Raül
• dc.date.accessioned 2023-06-12T05:36:48Z
• dc.date.available 2023-06-12T05:36:48Z
• dc.date.issued 2023
• dc.description.abstract This letter studies the impact of past violence and repression on current territorial preferences in a contemporary democracy. Does a violent past lay the grounds for pro-secessionist preferences, or does it lead individuals to cling on to the territorial status quo? We study whether exposure to the events of the Spanish Civil War and its immediate aftermath made people more or less likely to support Catalan secession from Spain. Our analysis employs a dataset that combines a large N of individual-level survey data with historical data about repression and violence in each Catalan municipality. Findings indicate that current preferences for secession tend to diminish among the oldest Catalan generation that was exposed to higher levels of violence in their municipality. Most crucially, we show that exposure to violence created a sense of apathy towards politics among the oldest cohort, which eventually leads to a lower predisposition to support secession, a feeling that was not transmitted to subsequent generations. Our findings qualify some of the existing knowledge on the effects of past political violence on present political attitudes.
• dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
• dc.identifier.citation Rodon T, Tormos R. The burden of a violent past: formative experiences of repression and support for secession in Catalonia. Brit J Polit Sci. 2023 Jan;53(1):269-80. DOI: 10.1017/s0007123422000035
• dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007123422000035
• dc.identifier.issn 0007-1234
• dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57137
• dc.language.iso eng
• dc.publisher Cambridge University Press
• dc.relation.ispartof British Journal of Political Science. 2023 Jan;53(1):269-80
• dc.rights This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
• dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
• dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• dc.subject.keyword Secession
• dc.subject.keyword Violence
• dc.subject.keyword Civil war
• dc.subject.keyword Catalonia
• dc.subject.keyword Spain
• dc.title The burden of a violent past: formative experiences of repression and support for secession in Catalonia
• dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
• dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion