IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc19/203618.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Stalin and Roosevelt influenced the Federal Elections in 2017 East Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Hälbig, Mirja C.
  • Lorenz, Jürgen R.

Abstract

Exploiting differences in occupation status in East Germany in the last days of World War II and shortly thereafter, we find that regions which - due to their occupation status - experienced a drastic supply problem caused by the influx of great numbers of refugees fleeing from the Red Army in 1945 had a disproportionate increase in AfD votes from 2013 to 2017. We conclude that the "refugee crisis" in 2015, which dominated the campaign of the federal elections in 2017 and is considered as main determinant of voting for the AfD, activated the collective memory of this long-gone historic event and thereby shaped the current political landscape.

Suggested Citation

  • Hälbig, Mirja C. & Lorenz, Jürgen R., 2019. "How Stalin and Roosevelt influenced the Federal Elections in 2017 East Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203618, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc19:203618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/203618/1/VfS-2019-pid-28105.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fontana, Nicola & Nannicini, Tommaso & Tabellini, Guido, 2023. "Historical roots of political extremism: The effects of Nazi occupation of Italy," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 723-743.
    2. Tim Friehe & Helge Mueller & Florian Neumeier, 2017. "Media content's role in the making of a democrat: Evidence from East Germany," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201711, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    3. Raymond Fisman & Yasushi Hamao & Yongxiang Wang, 2014. "Nationalism and Economic Exchange: Evidence from Shocks to Sino-Japanese Relations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(9), pages 2626-2660.
    4. Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni, 2016. "Tear in the Iron Curtain: The Impact of Western Television on Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 25-41, March.
    5. Giovanni Facchini & Anna Maria Mayda, 2009. "Does the Welfare State Affect Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants? Evidence across Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 295-314, May.
    6. Christian Ochsner & Felix Roesel, 2020. "Migrating Extremists," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 1135-1172.
    7. Sascha O. Becker & Katrin Boeckh & Christa Hainz & Ludger Woessmann, 2016. "The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long‐Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 40-74, February.
    8. Alexandra Avdeenko & Thomas Siedler, 2017. "Intergenerational Correlations of Extreme Right‐Wing Party Preferences and Attitudes toward Immigration," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(3), pages 768-800, July.
    9. Thiemo Fetzer, 2019. "Did Austerity Cause Brexit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3849-3886, November.
    10. Cantoni, Davide & Hagemeister, Felix & Westcott, Mark, 2019. "Persistence and Activation of Right-Wing Political Ideology," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 143, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    11. Richard Hornbeck & Suresh Naidu, 2014. "When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 963-990, March.
    12. Acharya, Avidit & Blackwell, Matthew & Sen, Maya, 2014. "The Political Legacy of American Slavery," Working Paper Series rwp14-057, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Andreas Steinmayr, 2016. "Exposure to Refugees and Voting for the Far-Right. (Unexpected) Results from Austria," WIFO Working Papers 514, WIFO.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Polugodina, Maria & Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2020. "East Prussia 2.0: Persistent regions, rising nations," Discussion Papers 2020/8, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian Ochsner & Felix Rösel, 2017. "Activated History - The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna," CESifo Working Paper Series 6586, CESifo.
    2. Carillo, Mario Francesco, 2018. "Fascistville: Mussolini's New Towns and the Persistence of Neo-Fascism," MPRA Paper 96236, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Oct 2019.
    3. Cantoni, Davide & Hagemeister, Felix & Westcott, Mark, 2019. "Persistence and Activation of Right-Wing Political Ideology," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 143, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    4. Mehic, Adrian, 2019. "Immigration and Right-Wing Populism: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Working Papers 2019:5, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    5. Polugodina, Maria & Grigoriadis, Theocharis, 2020. "East Prussia 2.0: Persistent regions, rising nations," Discussion Papers 2020/8, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    6. Štěpán Jurajda & Dejan Kovač, 2021. "Names and behavior in a war," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 1-33, January.
    7. Christian Ochsner & Felix Roesel, 2020. "Migrating Extremists," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 1135-1172.
    8. Mario F. Carillo, 2022. "Fascistville: Mussolini’s new towns and the persistence of neo-fascism," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 527-567, December.
    9. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    10. Győző Gyöngyösi & Emil Verner, 2022. "Financial Crisis, Creditor‐Debtor Conflict, and Populism," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 2471-2523, August.
    11. Lars Hornuf & Marc Oliver Rieger & Sven A. Hartmann, 2023. "Can television reduce xenophobia? The case of East Germany," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(1), pages 77-100, February.
    12. David Schindler & Mark Westcott, 2021. "Shocking Racial Attitudes: Black G.I.s in Europe," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(1), pages 489-520.
    13. Lange, Martin, 2021. "The legacy of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 733-750.
    14. Fabian Wahl, 2017. "Does European development have Roman roots? Evidence from the German Limes," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 313-349, September.
    15. Luis R. Martinez & Jonas Jessen & Guo Xu, 2023. "A Glimpse of Freedom: Allied Occupation and Political Resistance in East Germany," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 68-106, January.
    16. Nicolas R. Ziebarth & Gert G. Wagner, 2013. "Top-down v. Bottom-up: The Long-Term Impact of Government Ideology and Personal Experience on Values," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1280, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Stefano Gagliarducci & Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato & Francesco Sobbrio & Guido Tabellini, 2020. "War of the Waves: Radio and Resistance during World War II," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1-38, October.
    18. Gianmarco Daniele & Amedeo Piolatto & Willem Sas, 2018. "Who Sent You? Strategic Voting, Transfers and Bailouts in a Federation," Working Papers. Serie AD 2018-05, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    19. Sekeris, Petros & Vasilakis, Chrysovalantis, 2016. "The Mediterranean Refugees Crisis and Extreme Right Parties: Evidence from Greece," MPRA Paper 72222, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Jakub Lonsky, 2021. "Does immigration decrease far-right popularity? Evidence from Finnish municipalities," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 97-139, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc19:203618. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.