Representations of Past Injustice in a Context of Political Polarization

Berenike Firestone, Columbia University
Ruth Ditlmann, Hertie School
Oguzhan Turkoglu, Hertie School

Awareness of past atrocities is widely seen as critical for restoring justice and building resilient democracies. Yet, confronting people with past injustice can also lead to backlash. Especially in contexts of political polarization, information about and commemoration of the past can increase such polarization. Through a survey experiment (n=1,000) we measured the effect of different representations of the Holocaust on attitudes towards minoritized groups and action intentions for commemoration and liberal democracy among a representative sample of Germans. We find heterogenous treatment effects by party affiliation. Far-right supporters exposed to the story of an individual victim report increased intentions to commemorate the victims of national socialist (NS) persecution and fight antisemitism. For others, representations that center the sheer extent of atrocities and impunity or focus on reconciliation efforts have greater mobilizing potential. We repeated the survey with the same respondents three months later (Nov 2023), following the start of the Israel-Gaza war, and again see divergent responses by party affiliation. While means and treatment effects are stable for non-far-right respondents between the two waves, attitudes towards refugees and Jews worsen for far-right supporters and the individual Holocaust victim story no longer mobilizes them. Instead, in the second wave we see backlash among far-right supporters to all Holocaust representations, resulting in worsened attitudes towards Jews and Roma and Sinti, both victim groups of NS persecution. The results demonstrate the divergent effects representations of past injustice can have in a polarized political environment and point to greater volatility in attitudes towards minoritized groups among far-right supporters.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 66. The Politics of Historical Memory and Knowledge Production