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Report from the Laboratory: The Influence of Institutions on Political Elites' Democratic Values in Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert Rohrschneider
Robert Rohrschneider
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Abstract

The unification of Germany revives several questions about the future of Germany's democracy. Given the socialist-authoritarian background, how supportive are East Germany's elites of liberal democratic rights? Has the socialist-democratic experience instilled into elites a social egalitarian conception of democracies? In what ways, if at all, do elites support direct democracy procedures? I examine political elites' conceptions of democracies in the united Germany in 1991, using a survey of 168 parliamentarians from the united parliament in Berlin. I find that the socialist and parliamentary institutions in the East and the West, respectively, have substantially influenced elites' conceptions of democracies in Germany, leading to a value divergence across the East-West boundary. Yet the findings also suggest that a partial value convergence in terms of liberal democratic rights among postwar elites has taken place. The results support an institutional learning theory, but they also suggest that support for liberal democratic values has been diffused into East Germany.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 88 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 927 - 941
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1994

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