Measuring Threat and Violence

This chapter describes our data and methods. Our analysis is based on an original dataset of census returns, electoral results, and pogrom location information. We gathered these data at the lowest geographical unit for which they could be merged, yielding observations for over 2,000 localities. We use census data on religion and electoral data on support for Jewish and non-Jewish nationalist parties to measure the degree of perceived political threat prior to the outbreak of war. We establish the characteristics of those localities where pogroms occurred using a variety of methods, including multivariate statistical models and ecological inference.