Historical Experiences, Collective Memory, and Willingness to Fight for One’s Country: Comments on Paez et al. (2008)

Abstract

This article considers Paez et al.’s (2008) article “‘Remembering’ World War II and Willingness to Fight: Sociocultural Factors in the Social Representation of Historical Warfare Across 22 Societies.” Despite the importance of their focus on social representations of history and willingness to fight for one’s country, it is argued that Paez et al.’s article features a number of methodological flaws. Specifically, the way in which key variables (historical experience, collective memory, and willingness to fight for one’s country) are operationalized is especially problematic. The implications of these weaknesses for their conceptual conclusions are discussed briefly, as are the more general limitations of statistical analyses of survey data for addressing these issues.