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Belonging and exclusion: the dark side of regional identity in Germany
[journal article]
Abstract A collective regional identity is a favourable condition for the acceptance of majority decisions made at the regional level and for the delegation of competencies from the central to regional governments. Moreover, a regional identity can play an important role in times of global challenges. Region... view more
A collective regional identity is a favourable condition for the acceptance of majority decisions made at the regional level and for the delegation of competencies from the central to regional governments. Moreover, a regional identity can play an important role in times of global challenges. Regional attachment might generate a we-feeling and help individuals to cope better with a complex world. The same feeling, however, might also serve as a basis for exclusionary attitudes. In this article, we analyse regional identity at the Land level in Germany with data from the German General Social Survey. Our results show that regional identity is strong in both the eastern and western parts of the country, with people in the east, surprisingly, identifying with their respective Land slightly more than people in the west, even though the five eastern Länder were only established in 1990 after decades of centralist rule. Furthermore, the dark side of regional identity manifests itself only in eastern Germany, where a stronger regional identity tends to go hand in hand with a greater dislike of foreigners.... view less
Keywords
regional identity; federalism; xenophobia; political psychology; identity; collective identity; Bundesland; old federal states; New Federal States; identification; region; Federal Republic of Germany
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
Dislike of foreigners; Correlates of collective identities; German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) 1991, 2000, 2008 and 2016
Document language
English
Publication Year
2021
Page/Pages
p. 146-163
Journal
Comparative European Politics, 19 (2021) 2
Issue topic
Identities and attitudes to decentralization in multi-level states: Understanding the territorial scales of political life
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-020-00230-5
ISSN
1740-388X
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed