TY - JOUR
T1 - The Real Consequences of Symbolic Politics
T2 - Breaking the Soviet Past in Ukraine
AU - Rozenas, Arturas
AU - Vlasenko, Anastasiia
N1 - Funding Information:
The status of the Soviet symbols was a contentious partisan issue, on which the competing factions disagreed publicly. The Soviet legacy parties who had espoused views sympathetic to Ukraine’s Soviet past, like the Communist Party of Ukraine or the Party of Regions, denounced Leninopad as an illegal, “barbarian” assault on Ukraine’s history (LB.ua 2013). The forces behind Euromaidan lauded the demolitions as an indication of Ukraine’s long overdue “farewell to the Soviet era” (iPress 2013). Leninopad was also openly supported by Petro Poroshenko, the winner of the 2014 presidential election (Riafan.ru 2014).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Conflicts over symbolic issues are prominent in public affairs, but do they have wider political consequences, and if so, why? We study the electoral effects of Leninopad (“Lenin’s free fall”), a sudden wave of demolitions of Soviet monuments in Ukraine. Difference-in-differences estimates show that the removals of the Soviet symbols mobilized supporters for parties with a relatively sympathetic view of Ukraine’s Soviet past. We attribute this backlash effect to a signaling mechanism: the removals indicated the weakening power status of the Soviet legacy parties, which motivated their supporters to turn out in elections. This backlash dissipated once the Soviet symbols ceased being a contentious partisan issue due to the escalating war in eastern Ukraine. Symbolic politics has real, nonsymbolic consequences, but only when it maps onto partisan cleavages.
AB - Conflicts over symbolic issues are prominent in public affairs, but do they have wider political consequences, and if so, why? We study the electoral effects of Leninopad (“Lenin’s free fall”), a sudden wave of demolitions of Soviet monuments in Ukraine. Difference-in-differences estimates show that the removals of the Soviet symbols mobilized supporters for parties with a relatively sympathetic view of Ukraine’s Soviet past. We attribute this backlash effect to a signaling mechanism: the removals indicated the weakening power status of the Soviet legacy parties, which motivated their supporters to turn out in elections. This backlash dissipated once the Soviet symbols ceased being a contentious partisan issue due to the escalating war in eastern Ukraine. Symbolic politics has real, nonsymbolic consequences, but only when it maps onto partisan cleavages.
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U2 - 10.1086/718210
DO - 10.1086/718210
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132655092
SN - 0022-3816
VL - 84
SP - 1263
EP - 1277
JO - Journal of Politics
JF - Journal of Politics
IS - 3
ER -