Leslie Fischer

Research question:
Political actors are often held accountable by voters for adverse outcomes that were outside their control, but how do citizens assign political responsibility when those responsible for an adverse outcome cannot be hold accountable because they sit outside the democratic system altogether?

Case study:
Electoral accountability for Luxembourg’s conscript casualties during World War II (WWII).

Empirical strategy:
2 step empirical strategy: (1) Content analysis of newspaper reports on conscript deaths and mentions of political and military leaders. (2) Regression analysis on the association between conscript casualties and anti-government voting.

Findings:
I argue that when the responsible actor sits outside the democratic system altogether, responsibility is redirected onto the accountable targets that remain.

Contribution:
Despite having been in exile during the German occupation and having no role in imposing conscription, Luxembourg’s returning government was held accountable for conscript deaths after WWII.

Research question:
In what way are vulnerable population groups, beyond direct victims, politically affected by wartime collective violence, and to what extent do the political consequences of collective violence persist?

Case study:
Soviet zone of occupation (SBZ) / German Democratic Republic (GDR)

Empirical strategy:
Natural experiment that exploits spatial variation in women’s risk of experiencing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in the SBZ/GDR (April-May 1945). 2 step empirical strategy: (1) Spatial analysis to examine the effect of CRSV in nearby communities, which are indirectly exposed. (2) Individual-level survey analysis to test how persistent the CRSV-caused political alienation of indirectly exposed communities is.

Findings:
Communities near violence closely monitor how the state responds afterward. When the violence is not addressed, these communities become alienated from the state. They participate less politically and are less satisfied with government.

Contribution:
The political consequences of violence are diffuse; they spread beyond directly affected communities to nearby communities.

Research question:
What are the partisan effects of wartime violence?

Case study:
In-depth case study of WWII air raids in East Germany.

Empirical strategy:
2 step empirical strategy: (1) Community-level regression analysis on the association between air raids and voting for nativist vs. interventionist parties (2) Individual-level survey to distinguish voting behaviour for respondents who report no harm, material harm, and personal harm through the bombs.

Findings:
The electoral consequence of violence depend on the level of social aggregation at which violence is registered. At the community-level, harm generates demands for reconstruction which benefits state-interventionist parties over nativist parties. At the individual-level, harm offsets this effect.

Contribution:
Wartime violence has no uniform political consequence. Conflicting findings in the literature may reflect genuine differences in the political consequences of violence at different levels of social aggregation.