 Administrative areas and regional identity formation: The case of East GermanyStefanie Gäbler and Kim Leonie Kellermann Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2025, vol. 111, issue C 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. Keywords: Regional identity; Identity formation; Voter turnout; East Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:regeco:v:111:y:2025:i:c:s0166046225000055 DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104088 Access Statistics for this article Regional Science and Urban Economics is currently edited by D.P McMillen and Y. Zenou More articles in Regional Science and Urban Economics from Elsevier |
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