Suchergebnisse

In 1989-1990, peaceful protests shook the German Democratic Republic (GDR), ushered in unification, and provided a powerful narrative of people power that would shape protest movements for decades to come. This article surveys eastern German protest across three decades, exploring the interplay of protest voting, demonstrations, and protest parties since the Wende. It finds that protest voting in the east has had a significant political impact, benefiting and shaping parties on both the left and the right of the party spectrum. To understand this potential, it examines how economic and political factors, although changing, have continued to provide favorable conditions for political protest in the east. At particular junctures, waves of protest occurred in each of the three decades after unification, shaping the party landscape in Germany.

Abstract
This article situates Germany within postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) to explain current political outcomes, particularly, the disproportionate success of the AfD in eastern Germany. Similar to CEE, politics in eastern Germany is fragmented and volatile compared to western Germany; the political system in the east reflects conservative social values; and east German patterns of discontent are similar to CEE. However, in CEE, party systems were new and thus volatile and susceptible to populist mobilization from both mainstream and radical parties. Conversely, East Germany integrated into the developed West German party system and adopted its traditional parties, lowering the east's potential for volatility and polarization. Moreover, since the east is a minority within Germany, its relative volatility has limited impact on the German system.

Policy on transport infrastructure in Germany will come under increasing pressure thanks to considerable changes in basic conditions. Demographic change, shifts in economic and regional structures, continued social individualization, and the chronic budget crisis in the public sphere are forcing a readjustment of government action. At root, the impact of the changes in demographics and economic structures touches on what Germans themselves think their postwar democracy stands for. Highly consensual underlying assumptions about Germany as a model are being shaken. The doctrine that development of infrastructure is tantamount to growth and prosperity no longer holds. The experience in eastern Germany shows that more and better infrastructure does not automatically lead to more growth. Moreover, uniform government regulation is hitting limits. If the differences between boom regions and depopulated zones remain as large as they are, then it makes no sense to have the same regulatory maze apply to both cases. In transportation policy, that shift would mean recasting the legal foundations of public transport.

The roots of the east's continuing alienation lie in the enforced, prolonged isolation that its society endured during most of the cold war.