Max Schaub

No other form of violence targets a person's gender identity as much as sexual violence. What are the effects of victimization and exposure to sexual violence on individuals' understanding of their gender roles? How permanent are these effects? And how are they transmitted across generations? We explore these questions by examining one of the most extreme cases of known mass wartime sexual violence, following the Soviet occupation of Germany after World War II. Using original data collected from individuals spanning three postwar generations, we examine outcomes in the dimensions of household decision-making, militarized masculinity, and gendered political preferences and participation. Data collection will take place from July to September 2024, and we aim to collect 2,600 observations, 600 of which will be from members of the same family belonging to different generations. We will validate our findings using variation in the location of Soviet outposts in 1946, a matching design, and data on the prevalence of births nine months after the invasion.

Why do military forces target civilians in war? Extant theory developed in the context of civil wars generally interprets the targeting of civilians as motivated by a desire to deter collaboration with enemy forces. We extend this idea to the context of conventional war, which has been transformed by the widespread use of long-range precision strikes and ubiquitous access to mobile communications. We suggest that this transformation has made civilians highly effective informants, but has also placed them at greater risk. Because modern communications allow civilians to transmit precise targeting information, civilians pose a danger to occupying forces whenever they are within range of enemy fire—even in areas well beyond the front lines. Aware of this risk, armed actors engage in higher levels of violence against civilians. We demonstrate our theory with geospatial data from the Russian war against Ukraine. Using a variety of analytical strategies, including a treat-control and a difference-in-differences design, we show that Russian-occupied areas within range of Ukrainian artillery experienced seven times higher levels of civilian targeting. The relationship is particularly strong in regions with extensive mobile phone coverage and before the widespread use of drones, which can serve as a substitute for human intelligence. With the introduction of long-range rocket artillery, the area in which civilians were at risk began to extend further beyond the front line. Our findings extend the cooperation-control model from civil to conventional warfare, and highlight that the types of weapons supplied to a conflict may have unintended consequences for civilians.

Regime changes are common around the world. How do newly-established regimes interact with old regime elites? While pre-existing elites can directly challenge the new regime, their human and social capital may also bolster governance, indirectly reducing resistance against new authorities. We study foreign-imposed regime change in post-WWII Poland, tracing the impact of local Polish elites, including nobility, intellectuals, and army officers, on opposition to the Soviet-backed communist regime. We exploit plausibly random variation in Polish officers' wartime deployment and imprisonment for causal identification. While most officers in Nazi captivity survived, those in Soviet captivity largely perished. Leveraging differences in officers' wartime experiences, we find that municipalities with more surviving local elites experienced fewer Solidarność protests in the 1980s. Historical evidence suggests that surviving elites enhanced local economic development and public services, easing grievances against the communist regime. The economically beneficial effects of elite survival can be traced to this day.

Negative outgroup attitudes are often attributed to perceptions of competition or threat. We propose an alternative source: cultural scripts—interconnected networks of meanings that link particular group identities to negatively connoted phenomena. Evidence comes from three studies on the reactivation of the cultural script of traditional antisemitism in Germany. We begin our analysis by isolating the cultural script through automated analysis of a corpus of antisemitic texts. Next, using survey data collected during the Covid pandemic (n=17,800), we document an increase in antisemitism among Christian believers. This, we argue, is due to the pandemic activating the cultural script of traditional antisemitism, which links Judaism with the spread of disease. By means of an additional survey (n=2,000) and a concept association task, we demonstrate the presence of the cultural script in the minds of Christian believers. Two priming experiments explore how elements of the script can be triggered. Our work demonstrates the deep cultural roots of negative outgroup attitudes and the mechanisms behind their activation.

How do large-scale migration and resulting cultural diversity affect receiving societies? We argue that in contexts where individuals from different cultures regularly interact, exposure to cultural differences increases tolerance for deviant behavior, liberalizing social norms over time. We support this argument with evidence from Bavaria, which experienced a quasi-exogenous change in denominational diversity after WWII, following the arrival of 1.9 million German expellees from Central and Eastern Europe. Denominationally-blind allocation policy reduced the number of homogeneous settlements from 1,704 to nine as displaced Protestants were frequently assigned to predominantly Catholic communities and vice versa. Using original municipality-level data, we show that this sudden increase in denominational diversity reduced church attendance and membership, lowered support for socially conservative political parties, shored up support for progressive parties, and liberalized norms on gender, sexuality, and doctor-assisted suicide. These findings advance research on cultural change, intergroup contact, and consequences of migration.

The transfer of power via elections is an essential feature of democracies. We investigate the effect of such electoral turnovers on a crucial health measure, excess mortality. We argue that electoral turnovers can cause friction, which may delay the implementation of effective policy measures, especially in times of crisis. Our data come from France, where local elections were held at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using OLS regression, matching, and a regression discontinuity design to analyze 5,000 electoral decisions, we demonstrate substantial negative side effects of electoral turnovers. Municipalities where the incumbent mayor was defeated by an opposition candidate experienced 7 percentage points higher excess mortality than municipalities where the incumbent retained their office. Information on mask-wearing mandates and hand-collected data on executive orders issued in municipalities with and without turnovers supports our theoretical claims. While crucial for the functioning of democracy, holding elections in times of emergency comes at a cost.

Background Over 630 million women and children worldwide face displacement due to conflict or resided dangerously close to conflicts zones. While the adverse effects of physical destruction on healthcare delivery are relatively well understood, the effects on healthcare-seeking behavior remain underexplored, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This study aims at the interconnections and knowledge gaps between exposure to armed violent conflicts and healthcare-seeking behaviors for maternal and child health in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods Five key electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycNET, and African Journals Online) were searched for peer-reviewed publications between 2000 and 2022. The review was designed according to PRISMA-P statement and the protocol was registered with PROSPERO database. The methodological quality and risks of bias were appraised using GRADE. A data extraction instrument was modelled along the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews and the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination of Systematic Reviews.
Result The search results yielded 1,148 publications. Only twenty-one studies met the eligibility criteria, reporting healthcare-seeking behaviors for maternal and child health. Among the twenty-one studies, seventeen (81.0%) reported behaviors for maternal health such as antenatal care, skilled birth attendance, postnatal care services, and family planning. Similarly, nine studies (42.8%) observed behaviors for child health such as vaccination uptake, case management for pneumonia, diarrhea, malnutrition, and cough. While conflict exposure is generally associated with less favorable healthcare-seeking behavior, in some of the studies, healthcare outcomes improved. Marital status, male partner's attitude, education, income and poverty levels were associated with healthcare-seeking behavior.
Conclusion There is need for multifaceted interventions to mitigate the repercussions of armed violent conflicts on healthcare-seeking behavior, given its mixed effects on child and maternal healthcare utilization. While armed violent conflict disproportionately affects child compared to maternal health, it is noteworthy that, exposure to such conflicts may unintentionally also lead to positive outcomes.