Administrative areas and regional identity formation: The case of East Germany

Abstract

Changing regional administrative structures may have unintended consequences for citizens’ identification with their respective regions. We exploit a historical quasi-experiment to provide novel evidence on the formation of sub-national identities with changing administrative boundaries. During the German Reunification in 1990, federal states in East Germany were re-established. Some counties were located at the intersection of former GDR districts and historical federal states, creating uncertainty about their future state affiliation. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show that in counties with initially unclear state affiliation, voter turnout in state elections after 1990 decreases by up to 2.5 percentage points. Turnout in national and local elections does not show significant difference. We argue that the uncertainty about their regional affiliation diminished citizens’ political engagement by undermining their identification with the federal state level.