Working Paper
Political Purges and Social Ties: Evidence from Denazification
Abstract
How do social ties between administrators and defendants affect the
implementation of personnel transitional justice policies? In the recent
past, many countries have implemented political mechanisms like purges
or criminal trials to address issues of inherited personnel from periods
of authoritarian rule. While a considerable number of studies
investigates the consequences of these policies, less is known about
factors that shape their implementation. Building on insights from
administration research, I analyze how differences in social ties shape
the outcomes of political purges by drawing on data of approx. trials
from British occupied Nazi Germany. I investigate the effects of two
different forms of ties: social identity and networks. I leverage
variation regarding the level of ties between administrators and
defendants by focusing on the handover of denazification to German
authorities as well as differences in rulings against locals and
individuals that have been displaced at the end of WWII. I find that
while the increase of ties implied by the handover lead to overall more
lenient rulings, ethnic Germans with weaker social links to their
receiving communities disproportionately benefited from this effect.
This points to an ambivalent influence of social ties in the context of
personnel policies. While stronger identity ties seem to reduce the
willingness of decision-makers to impose harsh sanctions, links through
social networks increase their ability by facilitating the acquisition
of information regarding individual guilt.
Work in Progress