Max Schaub

No other form of violence targets gender identities and norms as much as sexual violence. What are the effects of victimization and exposure to sexual violence on gender norms? What are the effects of victimization and exposure to sexual violence on gender norms? How enduring are these effects, and how are they transmitted across generations? We seek to answer these questions by examining two of the most extreme cases of known mass wartime sexual violence in Europe: widespread rape following the Soviet occupation of Germany after World War II, and systematic sexual abuse during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. Using original survey data from three postwar generations spanning 80 years in eastern Germany (n=2,500) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH, n=2,000), we examine individual attitudes and perceived social expectations regarding the appropriate roles of men and women. Exposure to wartime sexual violence is high in our sample, with 12% of respondents in Germany and 8% in BiH reporting that a close family member had suffered rape or other forms of sexual violence. Consistent with classic feminist research on the topic, we find that wartime sexual violence reinforces patriarchal gender norms within victims' families. This effect is plausibly driven by social disruption, deteriorating mental health, and high levels of domestic violence within victims' families, as confirmed by additional analyses on family members (n=600 in each country). We validate our results with a list experiment and by with an instrumental variable approach, instrumenting self-reported exposure to wartime sexual violence with proximity to military and internation camps. Our findings confirm the cynical logic of using wartime sexual violence as a weapon to undermine the social fabric, and underscore the importance of interventions to mitigate negative consequences among victims and their descendants.

Armed conflict undermines public health not only by destroying infrastructure but also by eroding trust in government institutions. Prior work shows that victimized individuals often withdraw from public services, including government healthcare facilities, with especially adverse consequences for child health. Yet it remains unclear whether this distrust can be repaired. We address this question in northeastern Nigeria, a region heavily affected by insurgent violence. In the second wave of a representative household survey of caregivers of young children (n = 2,594), we embedded a randomized field experiment. Half of respondents received an official letter from their state health authority that acknowledged hardship and invited families to return to public clinics. The intervention significantly increased trust in healthcare institutions among respondents who had previously experienced violence—a pattern in line with theoretical expectations. Effects for non-victimized respondents were negligible. While no corresponding changes were observed in stated future use of government health facilities, exploratory analyses indicate greater willingness to vaccinate children. Our results show the potential of acknowledgment interventions as a scalable means to rebuild trust between citizens and public health systems in conflict-affected settings.

Background: The northeast of Nigeria, particularly the conflict-affected states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, has some of the highest under-five mortality rates globally. Armed conflict, damaged health infrastructure, and systemic poverty have substantially reduced access to healthcare. This study explores health-seeking behaviour among caregivers of children under five, focusing on trust in health systems, exposure to violence, and vaccine hesitancy.
Methods: We conducted a qualitative study using nine focus group discussions with 72 caregivers living in conflict-affected communities. Participants were purposively selected, and discussions examined barriers to accessing healthcare, trust in health systems, the impact of conflict on health-seeking behaviour, and perceptions of childhood vaccinations. Data were analysed thematically using content analysis.
Results: Health-seeking behaviour was shaped by a complex interplay of poverty, dysfunctional health infrastructure, and deep-seated mistrust of governmental institutions, all exacerbated by prolonged exposure to violence. Patriarchal norms played a central role in decision-making, often limiting women’s autonomy in accessing care. Vaccine hesitancy was influenced by misinformation, knowledge gaps, and limited community engagement. Caregivers with access to reliable information sources, including community networks and local media, expressed more positive attitudes toward immunisation.
Conclusions: Improving maternal and child health in conflict-affected settings requires prioritising trust-building, strengthening health systems in culturally sensitive ways, and implementing targeted communication strategies. Leveraging community engagement and resilience is essential to reducing barriers to care and addressing vaccine hesitancy in fragile contexts.

The book will explore a core dilemma of regime transitions: how should new regimes deal with the elites of the old order? These elites can pose a threat - undermining legitimacy, conspiring against new rulers, or mobilizing resistance. Yet they also hold valuable human and social capital that can strengthen state capacity and support regime survival. We will examine this tension through a unique natural experiment in post-World War II Poland, where the unexpected survival of traditional elites, driven by exogenous wartime shocks, shaped long-term opposition to authoritarian rule. While Nazi and Soviet forces systematically killed Poland's elites, one unlikely group largely survived: reserve officers captured by the Wehrmacht, spared as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Their capture was quasi-random, determined by battlefield contingencies rather than elite traits, offering rare causal leverage on elite survival. Drawing on original archival research on elite purges, untapped data on Polish elite biographies, and rich administrative and survey data from both communist and post-communist Poland, the book will trace the wartime fates and postwar roles of three elite groups - nobles, intellectuals, and officers - and show how surviving members of these groups shaped patterns of resistance, compliance, and development under communist rule.