Germanies (re)united? Regional and national identity since unificatio

German unification has been a mixed success. Differences in political and social attitudes indicate a persistent east-west rift in post-unification German political culture. Contrary to expectations that east Germans would be easily integrated into an enlarged German state, the application of West German political and social institutions to the citizens of the former German Democratic Republic has coincided with a growing east German consciousness of an identity distinct from that of west Germans. An emergent east German identity, which has grown stronger since unification, casts doubt upon the adequacy of socioeconomic approaches for explaining national integration.;Using techniques of survey research and east-west comparison, the dissertation explores the sources of east German identity. East German identity represents more than simply nostalgia for an harmonious prior state of affairs. Like regional and national identity generally, east German identity is a social construction that provides meaning and context to the daily lives of east Germans, especially those whose social environment has been disrupted by unification.;The political dimension of east German regionalism is symbolized vividly by the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), a post-communist successor party, which represents a populist movement of resistance in a poor region, the obverse of the Northern Leagues of Italy. National identity remains an important (though controversial) value in German society, evident not only in public debate and political life, but also as the value around which resentful rightist youth mobilize. The attempt on the part of some political and intellectual elites to span this cultural rift with the bridge of German national identity is likely to exacerbate the problem of xenophobia, because it reinforces to east Germans the reality of a second class social status in an increasingly multicultural environment. The dissertation provides support for recent theoretical contributions that dispute the necessity of a linkage between high socioeconomic levels and democratic political culture.