Putting Attitudes into Place: How the Socioeconomic Environment shapes Political Attitudes

Resentment toward immigrants, anti-democratic orientations and political apathy have been more pronounced in East than West Germany for two decades. Known determinants of political attitudes fail to explain this prevalence. East Germany has undergone economic changes, affecting everything from state budgets to the demographic composition of residents. Living under these conditions might have shaped how East Germans assess society, democracy and minorities. Trying to remodel the East German experience means to spatialize political attitudes: Survey data from an East German state, gathered between 2000 and 2013 (N = 9000), is complemented with data describing the socioeconomic dimensions of its rural districts. The effect of district level predictors of political attitudes is determined using multilevel analysis, differentiating between simultaneous effects, lagged effects and effects of changes. Path models illustrate how the socioeconomic environment shapes attitudes over time and how these translate back to affect the regional development, e.g. through election results.