Five years of unification: The Germans on the path to inner unity?¹

This article builds on a paper by Petra Bauer‐Kaase on ‘A Political System after the Shock: The Impact of the Unification on the Fabric of Political Orientation in Germany’, delivered at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC (2–5 Sept. 1993), and on a chapter by Max Kaase, ‘Die Deutschen auf dem Weg zur Inneren Einheit? Eine Langsschnittanalyse von Selbst‐ und Fremdwahrnehmungen bei Ost‐ und Westdeutschen’, in Hedwig Rudolph (ed.), Geplanter Wandel, ungeplanle Wirkungen. Handlungslogiken und ‐ressourcen im Prozeβ der Transformation, WZB‐Jahrbuch 1995 (Berlin: edition sigma, 1995), pp.160–81.

Abstract

Based on three surveys of the voting‐age population in west Germany and east Germany in 1992, 1993 and 1994, the article analyses the ways the two German populations view themselves and the ‘others’ regarding their position on problems of German unification. Two indices and a four‐fold typology are constructed which summarise and combine these attitudes. The data show substantial differences in the way both populations look at unification matters. While no anchoring in the social structure is found, attitudes are partially crystallised along left‐right party lines. While German democracy is not endangered through unification strains, challenges to democratic legitimacy not only exist in the east, as one would expect, but also in the west. The article concludes that the road to inner unity is a long and stony one.

Notes

This article builds on a paper by Petra Bauer‐Kaase on ‘A Political System after the Shock: The Impact of the Unification on the Fabric of Political Orientation in Germany’, delivered at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC (2–5 Sept. 1993), and on a chapter by Max Kaase, ‘Die Deutschen auf dem Weg zur Inneren Einheit? Eine Langsschnittanalyse von Selbst‐ und Fremdwahrnehmungen bei Ost‐ und Westdeutschen’, in Hedwig Rudolph (ed.), Geplanter Wandel, ungeplanle Wirkungen. Handlungslogiken und ‐ressourcen im Prozeβ der Transformation, WZB‐Jahrbuch 1995 (Berlin: edition sigma, 1995), pp.160–81.