Regime Histories & Anti-foreigner Violence in Post-unification Germany

• In Event: Populism, Polity, and Economy

Abstract

This article examines the legacies of previous periods of violent authoritarian rule on post-unification, anti-foreigner violence in Germany. Extant work reveals the distribution of violent incidents is more concentrated in the new Bundeslaender, which joined the Federal Republic in October 1990. Can differences in regime histories explain these disparate patterns of anti-foreigner violence in contemporary Germany? We address this question using novel data on anti-foreigner violence. While controlling for the usual correlates of anti-foreigner behavior (contact, economic performance), we specifically explore whether the distinct Bundeslaender regime histories affect anti-foreigner violence post-unification. First, we consider whether different approaches to coming to terms with the past in the FRG and the DDR can explain different patterns of anti-foreigner violence. Whereas the FRG went through a wrenching process of coming to terms with the past, which produced a widespread “culture of contrition,” the regime in the East swept the Nazi past under the rug, claiming that the SED represented the anti-Nazi current in German political culture. Second, we consider whether support for the Nazi party, as a measure of local historical xenophobia, in the late Weimar period translates into anti-foreigner violence in the post-unification era. The areas of interwar Germany which became the DDR exhibited patterns of strong Red vs. Brown polarization in the Weimar area, whereas voting patterns in Western Germany were less polarized with higher levels of support for the moderate parties of the center-left and center-right.

Authors

• Hannah Marie Alarian, University of Florida

• Michael Bernhard, University of Florida

• Andrew S Rosenberg, University of Florida