Article When Is Collective Exposure to War Events Related to More Acceptance of Collective Guilt? Sandra Penic 1 , Guy Elcheroth 2 , and Dario Spini 3 Abstract Previous studies adopting the collective vulnerability approach have shown that condemnation of war atrocities is grounded in communal experiences of victimi- zation and is strongest in locations where victimization was spread across ethnic boundaries. Based on a representative survey conducted in 2006 (N ¼ 2,012) across the former Yugoslavia, we find a similar pattern for acceptance of collective guilt. While personal victimization does not have a significant impact, the acceptance of guilt is strongest in more war-affected regions. Moreover, the results show the importance of the type of communal-level victimization: acceptance of guilt is lowest in regions marked by asymmetric violence and highest in regions marked by sym- metric violence. Our findings suggest that collective victimization should not be treated as a uniform phenomenon and challenge the assumption that rejection of in-group guilt is an inevitable outcome of collective victimization. Keywords collective guilt, collective victimization, collective vulnerability, multilevel approach 1 Pluralistic Memories Project, LINES, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland 2 LINES, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland 3 NCCR LIVES/LINES, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Corresponding Author: Sandra Penic, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lausanne, Quartier UNIL-Mouline, Ba ˆtiment Ge ´opolis, Lausanne 1015, Switzerland. Email: sandra.penic@unil.ch Journal of Conflict Resolution 2018, Vol. 62(1) 143-173 ª The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0022002716645388 journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr