Inter-Group Contacts and Political Resentment in Eastern Germany

• In Event: The Fall of Communism and Its Effect on Radical Voting: Evidence from Germany

Abstract

Since 1990, there have been sustained political efforts to reduce economic disparities between Eastern and Western Germany, among others through the transfer of more than 1.7 trillion euros in economic aid from the federal government to the Eastern German states. As a result, income and unemployment inequalities between both parts of the country have been reduced by more than half over the past decades. Yet, despite these improvements, a growing proportion of Eastern Germans consider that important disparities persist between both regions. This paper builds on the explanatory power of interpersonal contacts along the former Iron Curtain border in Germany to understand the causes and consequences of Eastern political disenchantment. Using Facebook connectedness data (n=26,800,000) and data from an online electoral compass conducted during the 2017 German federal election (n=492,865), we show that the density of social networks between Eastern and Western Germans partially accounts for differences in political attitudes across both regions. More precisely, results obtained via regression analyses suggest that inter-group contacts moderate the relationship between socioeconomic grievances and political resentment. These findings bolster causal claims about how contextual factors such as social networks fuel political disenchantment in the former communist countries.

Author

• Evelyne Brie, Western University