This week we’re looking at the politicisation of memory. In particular, how do political identities in the present shape the way the past is remembered? And what implications does that have for politics and policy?
We’re familiar with the idea that history shapes contemporary politics, but what about the reverse? How do today’s political dynamics influence the way we remember the past?
In this episode, we explore a compelling study that examines this question in the context of Ukraine—a country caught between conflicting historical narratives from Russia and the West.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the nation has endured not only a devastating war but also an intense battle over history, identity, and legitimacy. Yet, these struggles are deeply rooted in Ukraine’s complex past.
The study we discuss was conducted in 2019, offering a snapshot from before the war. It investigates how Ukrainians recall their families’ experiences of victimisation during the Second World War and whether these memories are shaped by their present-day political beliefs.
Joining us to discuss these findings is Kristin Bakke, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at UCL and co-author of the study.
Mentioned in this episode:
Alan Renwick: [00:00:00] Hello, this is UCL Uncovering Politics. This week we're looking at the politicization of memory. In particular, how do political identities in the present shape the way the past is remembered, and what implications does that have for politics and policy?
Hello, my name is Alan Renwick and welcome to UCL Uncovering Politics, the podcast of the School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science at University College London. We're used to the idea that history can shape politics in the present day. But what about the reverse effect, the impact of present day politics upon how the past is remembered?
Well, a new study explores exactly that question in the very particular and vitally important context of Ukraine. It's now been more than a thousand days since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. During this time, [00:01:00] we've seen not only a devastating conflict, but also a battle over narratives about history, identity, and legitimacy.
This, of course, is not a new battle for Ukraine, a country that has long been caught between competing historical narratives from Russia and the West. The study we're talking about was conducted in 2019, so providing a snapshot from before the full scale war began. It examines how Ukrainians recalled their own family experiences of victimization during World War II and investigates whether these memories were shaped by their current political orientations.
The article is co authored by Kristin Bakke, who is Professor of Political Science and International Relations here at UCL, and I'm delighted that Kristin joins me here in the studio now. Kristin, welcome back to UCL Uncovering Politics. It's always fantastic to have you on the program. And I've said a little there in the introduction about what this article focuses on, but do you want to flesh that out for [00:02:00] us?
How would you describe the question that this article seeks to address?
Kristin Bakke: Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. Um, so, there's a growing body of work in political science on how people's memories and perceptions of their own or their families experiences of war and violence might shape a range of present day outcomes that we care about.
Political behavior, voting, political trust. But what if, as some research in social psychology and also memory studies would suggest, the story goes the other way around, right? What if it is people's present beliefs and identities that shape their perceptions of their own past, specifically when it comes to their family or community's past victimization?
So those are the, the theoretical questions that we're interested in, in the study, focusing on people's memories of their family and their communities victimization in World War II, and as you said, in the context of Ukraine. And the evidence I'm going to talk about, that comes from a survey, [00:03:00] nationally representative survey that we did in Ukraine in 2019, and this is with my co authors, John O'Loughlin, Gerard Toll, Kit Rickard, and we did this in collaboration with the wonderful people at the Kiev International Institute of Sociology.
I wanna flag them. They are just, you know, fabulous pollsters. Um, we also did a survey in 2022 and 2024, which, you know, we can talk about at the end if you want. But, you know, this very much it is a study about Ukraine. But I think the phenomena we talk about go beyond Ukraine. And we know that state elites, everywhere, really, use memories of the past and the past for political ends. The creation of coherent narratives about historical events are, of course, central to nation building efforts or state building efforts. We can think of our own national anthems, like the Norwegian national anthems. I'm, I'm from Norway.
And think about school curricula. Think about the content of TV programs. And we know that the past is very often used to forge the sense of, you know, belonging. And very often the things [00:04:00] about the past that are used to forge the sense of identity, we all belong together, are major historical events about violence.
So often it's about, you know, either the suffering, or of the glorious victories, you know, the national heroes, the villains, you know, these are part of national, uh, national narratives. Now, these tools aren't confined to the borders of the state, and that's been very clear in the region that we often refer to as Russia's near abroad, quote unquote, so that the countries in the former Soviet Union that Russia sees to be in its sphere of influence.
And in particular, we know that since the mid 2000s, Russian governments, um, have used the Soviet victory in World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, as it's known, to try to create a sense of, you know, we belong together, both within Russia, but also within the countries in the near abroad. And you know, the narrative is this, you know, we all fought together, we all suffered together, we all won together against the Nazis, to try to create a [00:05:00] sense of a common Russian world. And this has, you know, been through pro Russian social media, TV programs, you know, big budget films, to, you know, to get this kind of narrative out there. Now we also know that domestic political elites in some of the, you know, in several of the countries, in, in the so called near abroad, haven't been fans of these efforts because they've been trying to carve out their independence, right?
And want to distance themselves from the Soviet past. So they've rather emphasized all the terrible things that the Soviet regimes imposed upon their citizens. And that then brings us to the citizens who find themselves in this information competition about the past, right? Um, and this is sometimes referred to as memory wars, uh, in, in the former Soviet Union and the literature on, you know, the former Soviet Union.
Um, and we know quite a bit about this elite level framing, but we know less about how ordinary people, right, are navigating this past. And that's where, where we come in, where we're interested in how ordinary people's [00:06:00] geopolitical orientations, which basically is about whether they're leaning towards Russia or the West, might shape how they view their own past. So, that's what we're, you know, trying to do here.
Alan Renwick: That's really clear. Fantastic. Thank you so much. And was there a reason you focused particularly on Ukraine, uh, when you did that? As you've mentioned, there are a number of countries in Russia's near abroad, as it's known. And, I mean, now we think Ukraine is kind of at the center of these things, obviously, because it is, because of what has happened since you did this research.
But in 2019, maybe that was less clear. So, why did you focus on Ukraine back then?
Kristin Bakke: Well, well, we actually focused on all of 'em, uh,
Alan Renwick: Okay.
Kristin Bakke: So we, we have, uh, but this, this article here, this study here is particularly about Ukraine, but it was actually a big project where we, we did surveys across several of these states.
Belarus, Armenia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, uh, am I forgetting? Uh, Georgia. Um, uh, but this question, and the question is interesting and important in all of them. Mm-Hmm. And this particular study we honed in on Ukraine because, [00:07:00] the question is pertinent in all of these, but perhaps particularly in Ukraine, given everything that's happened since 2014.
You had the Euromaidan revolution with where, you know, the pro Russian president was stepping down, the annex, Russian annexation of Crimea, the war, you know, in the Donbas. So this, this sort of this pulling between the West and Russia has been, you know, very pertinent in Ukraine, which makes it a particularly interesting case, an important case really to look at.
Alan Renwick: Yeah. Okay. So tell us a bit then about how you've approached this, this issue. And I guess we might first start by thinking about the kind of theoretical, uh, perspective, the theoretical framework that you bring to these discussions.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah. So, you know, as political scientists often do, we then go beyond our discipline, outside our discipline to figure out how can we get our handle on this.
And we go to social psychology in this study. And you know, we're not the only political scientists, uh, you know, who are doing that. And we go to this literature on motivated reasoning [00:08:00] in social psychology. And the core insight here is that because memory plays such an important role in defining who we are, in defining what our in group is, who our out group is, you know, the ones we see as different from us, um, we may selectively remember certain events, not others, downplaying or emphasizing certain elements of the past to fit our present beliefs.
So we as human beings, the, the argument goes tend to process information about the world in ways that preserve our preexisting attitudes or put our own, what we see as our in group, our own social group in a favorable light. So in essence, we seek to emphasize information about our past that resonates with our beliefs and identities today and either ignore or kind of downplay information that is contrary to these beliefs because we don't like cognitive dissonance.
Alan Renwick: And I guess that's the, and you're referring there to the way in which we, think about the past, but an information about the past, but it applies to all sorts of information. So people will be familiar with [00:09:00] these sorts of ideas from, you know, how we process information about politicians in the present as well.
Kristin Bakke: And that's where, you know, and that's the literature in Political Science, where we really seen motivated reasoning be brought in. And I think it's, we're seeing it increasingly in studies of, you know, of violence, uh, as well. And none of this is, of course, to say that we are lying about our past, but that we might selectively, sort of, emphasize some aspects of our past.
Um, now, given this kind of motivated reasoning this, people might, um, emphasize or downplay certain events of the past, historical violence in particular, given that historic violence, this, you know, major events are so central often to this, you this national narrative, narratives we tell about ourselves, who we are, how we identify, and that can give us two kinds of biases, which again, you know, we can think of not just in this context, but, we are interested in it in this particular context when it comes to violence.
So one is what we call confirmation bias, which implies that individuals will seek out or emphasize or give credit to [00:10:00] information that is resonating and reinforced. Our present beliefs and identities. And in contrast, disconfirmation bias implies that when I'm confronted with information that isn't resonating with my beliefs today, I will either actively kind of counter argue that information, emphasizing my present beliefs even more strongly perhaps through a backfire effect, or I will simply ignore the information that I don't want to know.
Alan Renwick: And how are you thinking these sorts of mechanisms would play out in the particular case of Ukraine? So what sorts of hypotheses does, does this theory lead you to?
Kristin Bakke: Yeah, so what we do then is that what we're interested in is really how people who are geopolitically oriented towards Russia or the West might then view their past violence, past victimization of their family or community differently.
Alan Renwick: So by that you mean, um, uh, whether, whether people, people's own identity they identify as being more associated with the West or more with Russia.
Kristin Bakke: Right. Will then make them actually think [00:11:00] about their own community's victimization differently. Yeah. So we, we proceed in, sort of, in, in a few steps to try to, to figure out, is this actually how., you know, how the world works, uh, in this case. And, so, to try to get a handle on this, what we did was that, in this big survey we did, which has a nationally representative sample, we designed a survey experiment. And what we do in that is that we try to vary blame attribution, and the reason for that is that if blame for past violence is explicitly attributed to a certain actor from the respondent's perceived in group or out group, motivated reasoning will be more pronounced.
People's present day beliefs and identities will be more likely to shape their assessments of the past, fostering either confirmation or disconfirmation bias. Similarly, if past violence is given an attribution that glorifies it, such an attribution, too, can foster motivated reasoning, as individuals will, based on their present beliefs, want to think favorably about their perceived in group.[00:12:00]
In contrast, if no blame or no glory is attributed to the past, then we would not be able to Expect to see motivated reasoning. So what we're trying to sort of manipulate is, you know, whether blame is attributed and if we see that blame if blame is attributed We then expect to see different reporting of their own community's violence based on the orientations people have today.
So if I can, if I may, can I take you through the steps of it?
Alan Renwick: Yeah, totally. I think it's so interesting actually to see the real detail of, so basically you're, you're asking people to read a little bit of text or, or, or, or it's being read to them. I'm not, I'm not sure which it is in this case, but, but they're getting a little bit of text.
And I think it's so interesting. To just set out what that text is and we can get kind of get a feel for, um, for, for just how you're kind of manipulating the circumstances in which you're then asking the question.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah. So this, uh, this 2019 survey we did was face to face on people's doorstep.
So there's an enumerator that, you [00:13:00] know, knocks on the door and is doing this survey. It takes about 40 minutes. And so it's being read to them, um, here, but we designed a study then, or this particular experiment as follows. So the outcome questions we're interested in is, it's their own reporting of violence that have happened to their family or community in the past.
So we asked two questions. First, we asked, how much did your family or neighbors suffer from death and violence during the Second World War? And then we asked a very specific question. Uh, did you or your family suffer personal losses during the Second World War? So that's the outcome. We're interested in what people report about those.
Alan Renwick: And that's, that's, sorry, if I can step in. That's really interesting because, I mean, I guess intuitively it feels kind of obvious that people's perceptions of the general past, the national past, would be shaped by their political identities in the present. But you're asking about people's own family histories.
So you're asking a really kind of, as you said, specific, but kind of hard test for whether, uh, whether the [00:14:00] information that you give people has an effect upon their perception.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah, I mean, it is a very, very hard test for this argument, and in some ways, it is going to be extraordinary, I think, if we find anything at all, because it's so specific, the questions are so specific.
But, you know, we want to put our arguments through a hard test, so that's what we're trying to do here. And then, you know, we're interested in whether people's present geopolitical orientation, their orientation, you know, towards Russia and the West is going to be shaping what they respond, uh, or what, how they think about these questions.
Now, you can capture geopolitical orientations in a number of ways, which we do. But, specifically, what we rely on here are two questions. One that is, um, where people can respond to whether they agree or not on a five point scale. I see myself as a person of the Western civilization, and then I see myself as a person of the Russian civilization to see, you know, to get this orientation towards Russia and the West.
And then what we manipulate in the experiment is blame attribution for past violence. [00:15:00] And, you know, in social scientific terms, we expect to see heterogeneous treatment effects. So, you know, we have our 2 000 respondents, and then we're randomly assigning them to three different groups. So in the control group, um, they give people a scenario, um, which says the following.
During the Second World War, it's estimated that between 22 and 28 million Soviet citizens died. So this is factual information. And there's no attribution here of violence, uh, in the control group. So we're not really expecting motivated reasoning to be at work here. So we're not expecting people who are getting this information to report, you know, something different about their past based on what their present geopolitical orientation is.
Alan Renwick: Yeah, so they're getting that information and then you're asking them the questions about the past.
Kristin Bakke: Yes, exactly.
Alan Renwick: Yeah.
Kristin Bakke: Then we have two treatment groups. Yes. Uh, where randomly a third of them are in one of them and randomly, you know, another third in, in the second one. So in the first treatment group, um, we design a [00:16:00] prime that vilifies the Soviet regime, emphasizing its responsibility for some of these deaths that happened to Soviet citizens in the war.
So again, they get the information during the Second World War, it's estimated that between 22 and 28 million Soviet citizens died. And then we add, many also died as a result of the Soviet government's inhumane treatment of its soldiers and repression of its own citizens. Many were executed or died in prison, in the Gulag, and during the deportations.
And again, this is information that is not, we haven't made this information up. Um, um, and here is where we are expecting different, you know, responses when people get that question about past violence. So for Western oriented individuals who received this vilification prime confirmation bias might make them emphasize that victimization.
So the blame attribution here about all the terrible things that the Soviet regime did is resonating with their present day orientation and beliefs. Hence, getting this prime might be reinforcing their beliefs, so they might [00:17:00] come to emphasize victimization.
Alan Renwick: So, compared to the control group, you're expecting to get a higher level of people reporting, uh, violence, that their family has experienced violence in their neighborhood.
Kristin Bakke: And in contrast, individuals who are Russian oriented might receive this prime. And here, disconfirmation bias might kick in. So they might come to downplay their families or community suffering because the blame attribution doesn't resonate with the present Russian promoted narrative about World War II and may not resonate with, you know, how they viewed neither the present nor the past, uh, here.
Or they might also alternatively just ignore the information. So, you know, the interesting bit is that we're expecting to see, compared to the control group, you know, different emphasis on victimization in the past among Western and Russian oriented respondents.
Alan Renwick: Mm hmm.
Kristin Bakke: Now what we also did then with the rest of the, you know, one third of the respondents was that we put them in a second treatment group where, and that treatment group receives what we called a glorification prime.
[00:18:00] And this, I think, is a weaker treatment in a way because it's not, giving blame so explicitly, but it's an important test to do because, uh, it also allows us to test whether the Russian government's efforts to create an identity around this shared glorious past actually resonates, uh, with ordinary people in the near abroad and how they, they view historical violence.
So what we did here is that, again, we gave them this factual information during the Second World War. It's estimated that between 22 and 28 million Soviet citizens died. And then we say, they died to defend their motherland in the great patriotic war and victory was the result of sacrifices made by all peoples and republics of the Soviet Union.
So here, if your Russian oriented respondents, uh, received this glorification prime, confirmation bias may make them emphasize suffering. Yes, we all died, you know, in defense of the motherland. Uh, you know, that sense of sharedness makes you emphasize violence in the past. And we [00:19:00] expect something different for Western oriented respondents here.
For Western oriented respondents, the glory attribution might not resonate with the narrative of the Soviet Union that is part of their present geopolitical orientation, which, you know, emphasizes a distance from the Soviet past. Alternatively, they might ignore the information because they don't like it.
So that's, you know, what we're interested in here.
Alan Renwick: Yeah. Thank you so much for setting all of that out. So clearly, I think so often in discussions of this kind of research, you, you focus just on the results, but actually seeing the process and seeing the exactly what you're asking people to look at and think about, or what you're kind of putting, what seeds you're planting in their mind is so important for then interpreting the results. So it's great to see how this kind of research is done. But the crucial question that we must come on to is, what did you find?
Kristin Bakke: Yeah, so, you know, we set all these expectations and we don't find support for all of them. And so very often, you know, we report research studies, it's as if, oh, the world worked exactly as we think it does. And which is, you know, I [00:20:00] think probably rarely the case. Um, we find some evidence, here, for confirmation bias when the out group is explicitly blamed for historic victimization. So when reminded of the death and suffering that happened at the hands of the Soviet regime, so in prison, in the Gulag, and during the deportations, Western oriented individuals are more likely to emphasize family losses in World War II than respondents who were given no such prompt.
So on average, compared to the control group, 7 percent more Western leaning respondents report a family loss. That is that they or their family suffered personal losses when they received the vilification prime. And you remember they're randomly assigned to these groups, so there shouldn't be, you know, something real behind this.
So that's what we're finding. Um, the vilification prime then appears to reinforce or resonate with the view of the respondents who already embrace a negative narrative about the Soviet regime, which is indicative of motivated reasoning in the form of confirmation bias. [00:21:00] But, so that's what we find. We do not find that this vilification prime triggers motivated reasoning among the Russian oriented respondents, right?
So we're not finding disconfirmation bias in this case, nor are we actually finding any evidence that the glorification prime seemed to be motive, uh, illicit motivated, uh, reasoning, which I think has some, interesting, uh, implications.
Alan Renwick: Yeah, I, uh, maybe we should explore those implications immediately, um, and why do you think that is?
I mean, I guess it could be that it's that the glorification prime, that that a prime, so when we use the word prime, we're just referring to the the words that you, you seed into people's minds in order to shape how they're thinking about things. So, as you suggested earlier, maybe that glorification prime, because isn't attributing blame, it's somehow weaker. So, so in general, that's the kind of general thing or it could be something more particular, I guess, about the, the Russian oriented population in particular.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah. I mean, I think [00:22:00] the, the reason, I mean, I think you're, what we've highlighted in our paper is mainly what you were saying there is that we, this is, and we've quite a front about that, that this is a weaker prime. And in some ways, you know, is that a fault of how we designed it? Um, I'm not sure it's a fault of how we, you know, we tried to create a prime that was fairly true to what, you know, narratives are. Um, but yeah, it could be that it's a weaker prime. Another option here is that it's because Russian oriented respondents do not see the Soviet Union sort of clearly as their in group, as part of their in group today. So, the Russian oriented respondents might look at the Soviet Union and think that okay, that's not so clearly part of my in group Russia today, whereas Western oriented respondents do see the Soviet Union as clearly associated with their out group Russia today.
And we do find some evidence for that when we look at descriptive statistics and other questions that we include in the survey. But you know, I think this is an avenue for further research to try to figure out why, you know, why does [00:23:00] one kind of prime really you know, elicit motivated reasoning and not another, and I think also this difference between Western and Russian oriented respondents is very interesting.
I'm not sure we have all the all the answers to that. So, you know, we have- there's some evidence here that motivated reasoning seems to be at work. Um, but, you know, it's fairly interesting. It's limited evidence. Um, but I think it's enough to, to make us think that, oh, we should perhaps be a bit careful to use people's self reported violence, in the past to explain present day outcomes if it really goes the other way around.
And, you know, there are a growing body of work, uh, who, uh, growing body of work that is very innovative and thinking about, well, how are we gonna assess individual's experiences of violence in the past, trying to avoid self reports, right? And I think this study suggests that, you know, those efforts are probably good efforts to trying to avoid self reports, certainly about, about violence that have happened a long time ago, if it is the [00:24:00] possibility that causation, you know, is the other way around.
Alan Renwick: Yeah.
Kristin Bakke: Uh, there.
Alan Renwick: Yeah. And what you've said there about the, The glorification rhetoric and whether that really works in order to, uh, shift people's attitudes also, I guess, has implications for how, whether we think Moscow in its propaganda efforts is effective or not.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah, I think this is, you know, this is very interesting.
And again, I think, you know, there's, there should be, as always, much more work done on this, but, you know, we find no evidence that this glorifying a common past affects how people report their historical suffering. And I think this might, you know, in part explain why Putin overestimated the extent of pro Russian sentiment in Ukraine on the eve of the 2022 invasion. Um, so we know that, as you said in, you know, in the setup here that the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 22 was and ensuing war, was preceded by and has been accompanied by a massive information [00:25:00] campaign that heavily draws on the past to justify the present. So, for example, defending his decision to invade Ukraine in a speech that Putin gave, uh, on the 24th of February, 2022, he explicitly referred to the human costs of Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, claiming that Russia will, quote unquote, not make this mistake the second time.
And this was a speech for a domestic audience in Russia, but it was also a speech aimed at Ukrainians. In fact, he explicitly addressed the armed forces of Ukraine in this speech, and he said, Your fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common motherland to allow today's neo Nazis to seize power in Ukraine.
I urge you to refuse to carry out the criminal orders. I urge you to immediately lay down arms and go home. So, you know, you see this glorifying aspect of the past. I mean, he also adds a sort of unjustified claim here about the neo Nazi regime in Kyiv. But, uh, you know, the key, you know, he, he tries to glorify [00:26:00] this common past, uh, right?
And in hindsight, this was clearly misjudged. Uh, Ukrainian army and people immediately put up, uh, you know, a heroic and massive, fight, against, uh, you know, to defend their country's freedom. And Putin was attempting to tap into a shared understanding of the past to ensure an outcome that was in his interest.
But that, you know, didn't work. He was clearly overestimating the impact that a Russian information campaign can have over a shared past over, you know, in, in over people in Ukraine and despite years of trying to glorify this common past, this narrative did not resonate, uh, there.
Alan Renwick: Yeah, and it didn't resonate, and you wouldn't have expected it to resonate particularly with the Western oriented population in Ukraine, but it didn't even resonate much with the Russian oriented population.
That's the finding that you've got.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah.
Alan Renwick: Really striking. So you've been continuing to do research, as you mentioned at the start, in public opinion, In Ukraine since February 2022, uh, that [00:27:00] isn't our main focus today, but do you want to give us a little bit of a sense of what sorts of questions you've been asking there and what, what you've been finding?
Kristin Bakke: Yeah. I mean, so when we set out to do this project, we always intended actually to do several rounds or two, at least two rounds of surveys in Ukraine, but also the other states in the near abroad. And I remember we said in our grant application because we think there are going to be big changes happening in the region.
Little, of course, did we know that it was going to be as awful as it has been. Um, but we, uh, we have then done a follow up survey in Ukraine in October, 2022, so a few months into the war, and also one in July, 2024. The first one funded by the Norwegian Research Council, and then the second one by the, the research council here in the UK, which also found, funded the, the first wave of surveys, and of course the 2019 survey was conducted face to face and people's doorsteps. That's not possible at the moment. So the 2022 and 2024 surveys were conducted on the phone. We did try to reach [00:28:00] as many people as we could among the original people we spoke to. Of course, that's very difficult given the war and movement. Um, so we do have some overlap, uh, you know, in respondents.
But we also then sort of top up so we get a full sample, full nationally representative sample, to the degree that you can in a war setting, um, both in 2022 and 2024. Um, we repeat some of the same questions we asked before, right, to see if people's attitudes are, you know, stable over time. And what's perhaps particularly interesting given, you know, what we talked about geopolitical orientation is how, how people's geopolitical orientations changed.
And, you know, if Putin's goal in this war was to make Ukrainians not to turn towards the West, that has clearly, you know, not worked out. So as I said earlier, we asked a range of questions to try to get at people's geopolitical orientation. One of the questions we asked was that we gave people this 10 point scale.
Where on this 10 point scale between Russia and the West do you [00:29:00] think your country, you know, should be placed? So an aspirational question. And when we look at that scale, you know, between 2019 and 2022 and 2024, that is, you know, now heavily skewed towards the West. It was in Ukraine skewed a bit towards the West before, but it was more evenly distributed.
So, you know, people have clearly oriented themselves more towards the West. Similarly, you ask about NATO. So NATO support for, support for NATO membership in Ukraine prior to, um, the full scale invasion had for years been around 30, 40%. Our survey from 2019 showed 44%. Not until the Russian troops were on the border to Ukraine, was support for NATO membership at the more than 50%. Our survey from 2022 and similarly from 2024 shows that it's, you know, 77%. So that's skyrocketed. Similarly, people have turned to, you know, half respondents in 2019 wanted neutrality. That's what they preferred. Now that's [00:30:00] less than a third that is preferring neutrality. So it's really shifted these geopolitical orientations.
Alan Renwick: And we can be confident that these are actual changes. It's not just differences in the sample that might be producing these effects.
Kristin Bakke: Yeah, I mean, this is a very important point. And, uh, In fact, we have an article on that as well. So one of, we should of course always be very cautious about surveys that have been conducted in, in, in wartime.
Um, and we're, you know, as I said before, we're working with these amazing and experienced pollsters at the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. They're the ones, you know, who are doing the hard work of fielding these surveys. Um, and, and, there are in, in a range of safety procedures that we have to take.
So, you know, when they call up respondents, they, you know, they introduce themselves and they say, are you in an area where it's safe to talk? So if their respondents are in an area of active fighting, the interview does not go on. Mm-Hmm, which means that we are not serving people in the areas where there's most violence, right?
Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. 'cause that would be dangerous and, you know, unethical to do. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. Um, we are [00:31:00] also not able to survey people who are in non government controlled areas of Ukraine. Now, this was the case in 2019, too. We separately actually surveyed in Crimea and Donbass. Uh, but, you know, in 2022 and 2024, the area that is government controlled is even smaller. So I think it's a very important point that you raise, and you know, I should actually have previewed what I said about these are results from government controlled areas of Ukraine and not in the areas with the most active fighting. And that goes for, you know, our survey, but most, you know, survey evidence that comes out of Ukraine and any, you know, wars as well.
Alan Renwick: Yeah, but you've clearly looked at this very carefully and you're, you're clear that there is a shift in attitudes here. It's not just a sampling effect, that there's a clear shift in attitudes as well. Yeah.
There we have to wrap it up, alas. Um, time is out, but this has been such an interesting conversation there and such important work.
Uh, so Kristen, it's great to have you on. There's clearly much more work still to come from this project. So we'll need to hear more from you as further articles [00:32:00] come out, but it's been great to hear from you today. So thank you so much.
Kristin Bakke: Well, thank you for having me. I'll be, I'll be happy to come back and report more on another occasion.
Thank you very much.
Alan Renwick: It's great to hear. We've been discussing the article Politicizing Memory, Evidence from Ukraine, written by Kristin Backe, along with Kit Rickard, John O'Loughlin, and Gerard Toll. It was published earlier this year in the Journal Problems of Post-Communism. As ever, you'll find full details in the show notes for this episode, and we'll also link there to an article in The Conversation, which includes some of the findings from the 2024 survey that we've also just been discussing.
Next week on UCL Uncovering Politics, we're turning our focus back to the United States and examining the power of the American presidency. Remember to make sure you don't miss out on that or other future episodes of UCL Uncovering Politics. All you need to do is subscribe. You can do so on Apple, Google Podcasts, or whatever podcast provider you use.
And while you're there, we'd love it if you could take a moment of time to rate or review us [00:33:00] too. I'm Alan Renwick. This episode was produced by Kaiser Kang and Eleanor Kingwell Banham.
Our theme music is by John Mann. Thank you for listening.