Long-Run Persistence of Political Attitudes and Behavior: A Focus on Mechanisms

Scholars of long-run continuities generally agree that norms of political behavior that shape voter choice, foreign policy attitudes, and even preferences concerning redistribution are remarkably durable. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms behind the persistence of political attitudes and behaviors. In this paper I leverage a natural experiment of history to explore micro-level mechanisms behind persistence of political norms in the context of western Ukraine. I focus specifically on a set of communities that developed a distinctive political identity under Habsburg rule. This set of scripts, which was formed under the tutelage of Habsburg formal institutions, came under a concerted attack when western Ukraine fell under Soviet control in 1939. Using archival sources, a unique set of oral interviews with underground activists of the Greek Catholic Church, and original survey data I argue that political attitudes and behaviors persisted within elite-regulated social networks. Remarkably, the Soviet state failed to dismantle dominant networks in the western Ukrainian countryside, try hard as it did, because contrary to common perception Soviet authorities lacked sufficient capacity to project power consistently and for prolonged periods beyond major urban centers. As a result, enough local elites—priests, teachers, and wealthy literate peasants—survived in western Ukraine to keep the Habsburg-era system of political norms alive against the pressure of formal Soviet institutions. This argument, which highlights the importance of long-run informal institutions, has important implications for the study of democratization and economic development especially in post-colonial societies.