Transition Democracies: The East/West German Model

Germany’s division after 1945 and its unification in 1990 offer a fascinating opportunity to study the formation of political values: to what extent are citizens ’ democratic values affected by their authoritarian and democratic regime experience? The post-war context in Germany creates the quasi-laboratory conditions required to examine the influence of individuals ’ regime experience on democratic values. After Germany’s division in 1945, eastern and western Germans were increasingly insulated from each other until 1989. The Berlin wall symbolizes the intra-German division: the former eastern Germany—the GDR—was governed by a socialist-authoritarian one-party state; western Germany established a liberal-representative system and a market-based economy. Citizens in the East and the West were therefore exposed to two fundamentally different systems. Is citizens ’ regime experience reflected in their views about democratic values? The question of Germans ’ commitment to the democratic process is important, in part, because of Germany’s undemocratic history. While the western state had become a mature democracy by the time the Berlin wall fell (Roth, 1976; Baker, Dalton, and Hildebrandt, 1981), eastern citizens ’ last opportunity to vote freely before the election in March 1990 occurred in January 1933 which led to Hitler’s emergence as Germany’s leader. This fact illustrates tha