Transfer of wealth accompanies most violent conflicts throughout the world. However, scholars have largely overlooked the political and social impact of this phenomenon, especially at the community and individual levels. We address this omission by focusing on the social and political impact of the Nazi death camp Treblinka in the Polish countryside, where nearly a million Jews were murdered.

How do societies develop following an exogenous change in cultural diversity and social cohesion? This paper proposes that by weakening informal coordination and enforcement mechanisms, an increase in cultural diversity can provide an impetus for greater reliance on public authority and, in the long run, lead to better economic outcomes. Long-term economic implications of diversity are conditional on the broader institutional environment, however. Diverse communities outperform homogeneous communities only in the presence of effective formal institutions. I test this argument using an original historical dataset on the diversity of migrant population in 1,217 communities transferred from Germany to Poland in 1945. I find that homogeneous migrant communities were more successful in reestablishing traditional private-order institutions, such as volunteer fire brigades, and in resisting the expansion of Communist institutions. In diverse migrant communities, resistance to the state was weaker as it offered public goods that diverse communities struggled to produce on their own in the absence of shared norms and networks. These divergent developmental paths had far-reaching economic implications following the transition to a market economy in 1989. Today communities formed by diverse migrant groups have higher incomes and more private enterprises per capita than communities formed by migrants from the same region. This may be due to the more favorable business environment, as I show using 2005 firm-level survey. Furthermore, residents of diverse communities express higher trust in the government, courts, banks, and the police.

Based on an original large-N dataset of individual Ukrainian oligarchs and
qualitative evidence, we test competing perspectives on the political power
of big capital. We find, surprisingly, that neither the assumption of direct
power by the oligarchs, nor the mobility of oligarchic assets, help tycoons
protect their fortunes against shocks. Instead, the indirect strategies of
party support and media ownership significantly enhance business wealth.
Empirically, we profile postcommunist oligarchs by examining the political
and economic activities of 177 Ukrainian oligarchs from 2006 to 2012.
Theoretically, we contribute to the literatures on instrumental and
structural power of capital, and on the interactions between extreme
wealth, rule of law, and democracy. In doing so, we contrast the logic of
flexibility, according to which oligarchs benefit from political adaptability
and deniability, with the logic of commitment compensation, according to
which oligarchs benefit from direct power when the rule of law is weak.

This article examines the process of consensus formation by the international community regarding how to confront the problem of trafficking in persons. We analyze the corpus of United Nations General Assembly Third Committee resolutions to show that: (1) consensus around the issue of how to confront trafficking in persons has increased over time; and (2) the formation of this consensus depends upon how the issue is framed. We test our argument by examining the characteristics of resolutions’ sponsors and discursive framing concepts such as crime, human rights, and the strength of enforcement language. We conclude that the consensus-formation process in international relations is more aptly described as one of ‘accommodation’ through issue linkage than a process of persuasion.

How do historical legacies shape contemporary political outcomes? The article proposes a novel attitudinal mechanism through which distant interethnic competition can influence political preferences in the present. It theorizes that historically conditioned predispositions at the local level can moderate the effects of national-level framing of a policy issue. Using Poland as a test case, I show that subnational variation in support for EU accession was influenced by populist claims about the increase in Jewish influence in the postaccession period. Anti-Semitic cues resonated with voters in areas with historically large Jewish populations and a contentious interethnic past, where latent anti-Semitism persisted throughout the communist period. To provide evidence for this argument, the article draws on rich historical and contemporary data at the county, town, and individual level of analysis and utilizes novel research methods.

At the psychological level, ethnic conflict can be seen as an extreme result of normal group identification processes. Bridging perceived intergroup boundaries is therefore key to improving intergroup relations. In contrast to the dominant association of nationalism with racism, chauvinism, xenophobia, and intolerance, we highlight the constructive potential of national identification. In a survey experiment, we find that the increased salience of a shared (Indian) national identity increases donations by members of a dominant ethnic group (Hindus) to members of a rival, minority group (Muslims). This effect is moderated by social status (caste). We suggest that national identification leads to a greater transformation in the behavior of low-status members of an ethnic group because they are more likely to be drawn to national identity as an enhancement of their social standing. Our study has implications for theories of social identity and interethnic cooperation, as well as for the literature on nationalism.

In August, a new language law in Ukraine allowed cities and regions to elevate the status of any minority language spoken by at least 10% of their population to “official” alongside Ukrainian. I argue that the law fails to protect genuine linguistic minorities and is likely to further undermine linguistic diversity in certain Ukrainian regions. More important, the law prolongs the vicious circle between Ukraine's lack of democracy and its politicians' reliance on identity cleavages to gather votes. I argue that the continuing exploitation of identity divides is increasing the popularity of extreme right parties and widening the gap in policy preferences between Ukrainian and Russian speakers. However, the current ethno-regional cleavages do not stand for irreconcilable identity attachments and their impact can be mitigated. The EU could contribute to this outcome by providing expert opinions on minority and language rights; demonstrating a commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity and independence to de-securitize the minority rights discourse; and increasing individual-level contacts between the EU and Ukraine to promote a broader European identity.