Political Culture in – a Reaction to the Indignities of Unification Wolf Wagner I. Introduction

“Four Green Fields” and similar songs expressing a longing for unification which are sung by many Irish and known to all did not exist in pre-unified Germany. Already during the seventies nearly everybody had given up the idea of a unified Germany in the foreseeable future – even those who claim today never to have done so. Still, Germany today is unified and Ireland is not. Maybe to an Irish readership Germany can serve as an example for what may go wrong in a political culture when such songs become true. If political culture is an indication of the legitimacy of a political system the data of East Germany show that the way unification was implemented in Germany has alienated a substantial part of the East German population from the present-day social, political and economic system and from politics in general. The question is: What are the possible reasons for this deterioration and are there lessons to be learned from it? This paper will first present the relevant data and then a model of cultural change as an attempt to explain them. Some preliminary remarks: 1. Due to separate development for more than 40 years, the inhabitants of the two former German states significantly differ in a variety of attitudes, opinions, perceptions and mentalities. which often leads to misunderstandings and tension in everyday life. 2. Nevertheless, it must be kept in mind that both groups belong to the same nation and therefore have a great lot in common. Simply put, East Germans are just as fond of football, beer, Sauerkraut and brass music as West Germans. 3. Since I will almost exclusively concentrate on dissimilarities, the difference between both populations might appear bigger than it actually is. 4. The experience of transformation from one political and social system to another is an individual process. However, individual differences will be averaged out in the results and conclusions presented here since they have been drawn from data stemming from extensive and representative opinion polls. 5. I will exclusively deal with negative effects of reunification and ignore all the positive aspects, such as improved social and economic conditions in Eastern Germany.

II. The development of Political Culture in East Germany during the process of unification as experienced by a panel of young Saxonians

In 1987 Peter Förster (2000), an East-German social scientist, was given the permission by the Politbureau to do a representative study of the political attitudes of the then 14 year old students. Because Peter Förster made this study the project of his life and set all his energies to find continued funding we now have reliable data about the development of political attitudes throughout the whole process of German unification.  In 1992 35% of the young people expressed satisfaction with the new German political 1 system (3% of them were very satisfied). In 1998 satisfaction reached a low with only 21% (2% very satisfied). In 2000 satisfaction rose again to 28% (1% very satisfied).  Asked whether they saw a difference in the morality of present-day politics to those of the GDR a growing percentage of the young members of the panel see no difference between then and now (the results are very similar for the question whether politics are more understandable today than during the GDR): [graph no.1]

Graph no. 1: No difference in political morality today to that of the GDR

68 67 66 63 64 62 62 Percent 60 59 58 56 54 *1995 *1996 *1998 *2000

 The disenchantment with the new political system is most strongly apparent in the answers to the question whether the young people were very strongly or strongly oriented to an active participation in politics. One would expect that political disenchantment becomes apparent during the final phase of the socialist regime and would then rise again when the break-down of the GDR allows free political activity. This does happen in 1990 but strangely enough even then the orientation towards an active participation in politics never reaches the level of the times during the GDR. The data for these years were collected under strict anonymity and can be taken as reliable and valid as those taken after unification. The fall after 1990 is a telling story of how the young people reacted to the process of unification. [Graph no. 2]

Graph no 2: Very strong or strong orientation to active participation in politics

60 55 50 50 44 41 40 30 27 20 19 13 13 11 10 8 10 9

0

*1987 *1988 *1989 *1990 *1991 *1992 *1993 *1994 *1995 *1996 *1998 *2000 2  If one compares this to the development of answers to the statement: “I have a secure future in the GDR” until 1989 and “I have a secure future in East Germany” after 1989, it becomes obvious that the deterioration in the political culture in this group of young persons is a result of the perceived exclusion from social and economic opportunities [Graph no. 3]  Understandably those of the young people who had strongly supported the socialist system during GDR-times are now significantly more critical of the new political system and those who were critical of the GDR and daily listened to Western media now significantly more often are supportive of the process of unification. But the growing disenchantment with the new political system cannot be explained by the influence of the GDR. The growing xenophobia has no correlation with any of the differences during GDR-times but it significantly correlates with the present social situation of the respondents: Those who feel existentially unsafe, have strong fear of

Graph no. 3: % of those who see for themselves a secure future in the GDR or in East Germany

100 20 26 80 32

60 with limits 40 77 70 62 35 38 perfectly 20 20 16 15 8 6

0 5 4 4

*1987 *1988 *1989 *1992 *1993 *1996 *1998 *2000

unemployment and have little confidence in their professional future, and who strongly agree to the statement that “West-Germans treat East-Germans as second class Germans” significantly more often profess to be emotionally against foreigners. [Graph no 4.]

3 Graph no 4: Percentage of those who are emotionally against or strongly against foreigners

40 40 35 32 32 30 28 29 25 24 25 20 15 14 10 5

0

*1992 *1993 *1994 *1995 *1996 *1998 *2000 *1988/89

 The most disquieting finding in the logitudinal study of Förster is that since 1996 he dared to ask the question: “Politicians expect that soon there will be social strife in East Germany. Do you agree?” Respondents could choose between “yes”, “no”, and “it is hard to say”. The results show a surprisingly high percentage of respondents who agree with the hypothetical statement of “politicians” – a statement I have never heard of in Germany during the past years. It would be alarming for any society if only a third and less of its young people did not clearly disagree with the expectation of social unrest and social strife on its territory. The results for 2000 look better, but still very obviously show the connection between the perception of ones own economic and social situation and the perception of social reality. [Table 1] Table1: “Politicians expect that soon there will be social strife in East Germany. Do you agree?” yes no it is hard to say 1996 48 16 36 1998 51 17 32 2000 40 33 27 have you experienced unemployment? results 2000 yes 47 26 27 no 30 42 28 are you afraid of life getting too expensive? results 2000 strongly 59 19 22 rather strongly 35 34 31 rather weakly/weakly 17 54 29

4

III. Comparison to other data A representative survey of the population of the East German state Thuringia in 2000 (Dicke et.al. 2000) shows the same results that the longitudinal study implies. Satisfaction with the performance of the new democratic system mainly depends on the perception of ones own economic situation and social security. Satisfaction with the party system and the political system correlates with the amount of education, income and age. Agreement to xenophobic and ethnocentric items correlate with dissatisfaction with ones own present economic situation and with dissatisfaction with the process of unification. Those who prefer to identify themselves as East-Germans or Thuringians instead of as Germans or Europeans also tend to answer significantly more positively to xenophobic and ethnocentric statements. Detlef Pollack has shown in a series of studies that the changes in political culture after unification are not a result of the formation that East Germans received during their formative years in the GDR but are a reaction to the indignities of the process of unification: Unification reduced production and the work-force in such a way that the only historical parallel can be found in the two lost wars. Now unemployment in East Germany is about double that of . 80% of all firms that survived unification are owned by West Germans. Much of the real estate is in West German hands. Still today the average income of East Germans is 18% less than that of West Germans. West-German members of the civil service still go home with more than 10% higher pay-checks than their East-German colleagues for the same work. I as vice-rector earn more than the rector of my university just because I had my education in West Germany. Consequently East Germans now value equality very highly while at the time of unification they prefered freedom over equality. Political culture - is the convincing conclusion by Pollack – is more influenced by the perception of present circumstances than by the values and attitudes of the formative years and is therefore more characterised by discontinuity than continuity. I shall now describe a model which can explain such changes in political culture.

IV. An explanatory model of the development of Political Culture Political culture is part of everyday culture as defined by cultural anthropology. Changes in the norms of everyday culture have been analysed by Norbert Elias. According to his historical studies everyday culture develops because most people try to improve their prestige-position in society by imitating the everyday cultural practices of people who they perceive as having an attainable slightly higher prestige-position. Conversely they feel embarrassed if identified with cultural practices which they perceive as belonging to lower prestige-positions. This explains why rules about nose-cleaning, tipping, body cleanliness are more strictly followed than any traffic law although there is no police to enforce them. Combined with the idea of Pierre Bourdieu to describe the social positions in a society by two dimensions of what he calls “capital” leads to the following model of cultural change (first presented in Wagner 1999):

5 [Diagram1]

Diagram 1: The paths of creation and distribution of cultural change

Economic Economic prestige Elites

Newly Rich Cultural Elites

Cultural Avant- Institutionalised poor Prestige gardes

It shows how the positions of prestige are distributed in a field described by the dimensions economic prestige and cultural prestige. Economic prestige describes all the elements of prestige that can be given a price. The dimension cultural prestige describes all those elements of prestige that cannot be expressed in money. To built a prestigious house for example cost a lot of money. But to know which kind of architectural design is a sign of ingenuity and which simply a sign of gaudiness is a knowledge that cannot be bought. The corner positions in this field of prestige are determined by the minima and maxima of the dimensions: The minimum in economic and cultural prestige is held by the outcasts of society, the mentally retarded children of poor parents, followed by persons with a minimum of formal school and training. The maximum of economic prestige combined with the minimum in cultural prestige is held by the newly rich, a group that has lost in meaning and numbers, because nowadays it need a lot of education and training to become rich except through lotteries and in some fields of entertainment and sports. The maximum of cultural prestige combined with a minimum of economic prestige is held by the avant-garde, poor artists, writers, students, intellectuals whose feeling of self-worth depends on being different than all the rest. The maximum of cultural prestige combined

6 with a maximum in economic prestige is held by the cultural elite, the heads of big publishing houses, design studios, advertisement studios etc. The maximum of economic prestige is held by the economic elite. Nowadays they need a lot of cultural prestige to get to and hold that position, but they are immensely much richer than the members of the cultural elite and can dispose about elements of economic prestige that the cultural elite cannot even dream of - and therefore denounces them as "uncultivated". Norbert Elias did not study the question how new cultural practices come into the system. Yet it is a decisive question. Since according to the findings of Elias the elites are continually faced with the problem that their behaviour is imitated by groups below them and that they therefore are in danger of losing their special position of highest prestige. Their very existence as elite therefore depends upon developing new practices that set them apart again from the groups trying to be like them. They can adopt new practices from foreign elites which they perceive as being even more prestigious than themselves. This has happened throughout history. The Romans imitated the Greek. The Germanic tribes imitated the Romans. For many centuries the English and French elites were in contest about who was the most prestigious elite of the world. In Germany imitating British and French ways of behaviour changed back and forth over the centuries. Since the end of World War II this position has more and more been taken over by US-American elites. But this only moves the problem one or more rungs of the prestige-ladder further up. Where do the foreign elites get their new cultural practices from? They have two possibilities: The first is to develop new practices by themselves. This often happens especially in the cultural elites. They are very creative. But at the same time they are limited in their possibilities by the position they have to defend against competition in the elite itself. To reach out for really radically new practices always runs the risk of being left out their on a limb all alone and thereby cut off from recognition and left to ridicule. Therefore the second method is much more secure. The avant-garde is a group which sees it main definition of self-worth to be different from the rest of society. They continually produce the most daring and outrageous new cultural practices. Members of the cultural elite take on the stance of courage supporters of new talent and let them run the risk for them. So they pick in the avant-garde those new cultural practices which seem to hold the best promise to re-establish the cultural distance and superiority of the elite towards groups imitating the established practices of the cultural elite as a whole. If the new cultural practice does not fulfil that promise it is dropped together with its propagator without damage to the supporter. If it keeps its promise it rises up (sometimes together sometimes without its inventor) into the realm of the cultural elite, travels from there to the economic elite, and then down through the whole of society. The art of Vincent van Gogh gives an excellent example for this process: During his lifetime he hardly sold a single picture. Nowadays his originals sell for several millions to public institutions and members of the economic elite. Prints of his sunflowers can be bought in the cheapest stores and have become part of the popular kitsch-culture. In its trip through society the mode of everyday culture transforms in a characteristic and constant fashion: They start as outrageously extreme provocation, then develop as the new modernity in the cultural elite. On the way to the economic elites the practice becomes representative, expensive, and exclusive. When it moves down to the newly rich 7 it becomes gaudy. As it moves from the economic and cultural elites down towards the left bottom it becomes first dogmatised, then simplified and cheap. And it ends up as traditional popular culture which tends to be looked upon by the elites as kitsch. In this model the norms of the elites and their political culture should spread through the whole of society. The values should be characterised by unity and continuity and not by the disparity and discontinuity found in our data. The explanation is found by the answer to the question: What happens, if a group develops the perception that it has no chance to improve its prestige-position by imitating higher groups? It explains the existence of subcultures and countercultures. This is shown in the next diagram: [Diagram 2] Diagram 2: The evolution of countercultures as a reaction to perceived blocks in increases of prestige

Economic Economic Elites prestige

Newly Rich Cultural Elites Segmental Avant-garde

Cultural Avant- Institutionalised poor Prestige gardes

Norbert Elias has describes this for the German bourgeoisie of the 18th century. In contrast to the French and British bourgeoisie they had no chance of rising up into nobility. So they stopped orienting themselves by the value-system of their nobility. Instead they took their own highest system of norms and set this as a spiteful counterstatement to the system they were excluded from. The German nobility spoke French. The German bourgeoisie spoke and wrote German. The German nobility was cosmopolitan, the German Bourgeoisie developed the concept of "Heimat" and turned nationalistic. The German nobility thought in terms of society, the German bourgeoisie set against this the concept of community. And very much in accord with the logic of model the historical social strata below the bourgeoisie followed the countercultural norm set by it. One can generalise from this historical example and assume that whenever an 8 improvement to ones prestige-position is perceived as being blocked the blocked segment of society will set its own cultural norms spitefully against those it feels excluded from. It continues to function as example to be imitated for the groups below it. So the mechanism of imitation continues and the blocked segment in turn has to take the choice between getting new cultural behaviour from its own segmental avant-garde or from adequate foreign examples.

V Application of the model to the changes in the political culture of East Germany If one applies the model to the development of Germany after the war to describe the experiences with division and unity, it can explain the development of very different everyday cultures in the two different parts of Germany during division which then in unity led to a process which created some of the indignities that caused the sudden changes in the political culture. In West Germany the elites mainly adopted American everyday cultural practices. Even the student revolt as a revolt of the avant-garde was a vehicle to adopt American political culture. Additionally the economic boom of West Germany enabled the lower strata of West German society to adopt middle-class norms. The result was that West Germany during the years of separation had become more American and middle-class oriented than the GDR. During that time there were more and more jobless people and people with insufficient income. Inequality increased. But non of this functioned as a block to prestige increase. No relevant coherent segments of West German society felt excluded from the possibility to improve their prestige positions by striving to keep up with the Müllers. During that period East Germany did not adopt much of the Soviet or Russian everyday culture except in the area of political culture. There many institutions, values and practices were imported. The wall had effectively kept the American influence on its other side. Astonishingly enough Radio and TV were not able to transport Western culture into East Germany. There was some influence in the area of entertainment, but the influence was much less than one is led to expect by all those cultural theories of cultural imperialism which continually predict the end of all indigenous culture because of American cinema and TV. If that influence had been so strong as often assumed, there would have to be two distinct cultures in East Germany: One in the area where reception of Western TV was possible and another in the areas what this was not possible. There seem to have been slight differences. In the Valley of the Ignorants (Tal der Ahnungslosen) people tended to be more critical of the system than in those areas where Western TV could be seen - quite the opposite effect of what the East German authorities had always assumed. In East Germany there is no corresponding influence by the Soviet Union on East German culture to that of the US on West Germany. While West German everyday language is full of Americanisms (called Neudeutsch - the new German) there are very few Russian words that have been adopted into East German everyday language. The high value of hospitality and the love for a reliable and unhurried life in a close network of supporting and mutually dependent and dependable friends, neighbours, colleagues probably is the most marked influence of Russian everyday culture in East Germany. this is due to two facts. The first is that physical contact between Soviets and East Germans was reduced to a minimum. The other is that the Soviet Union was no country that carried 9 a lot of prestige neither economically, nor politically nor in matters of products or practices of everyday culture. Thus in contrast to West Germany East Germany as a whole stayed more German and more proletarian in its everyday culture. East Germany itself was divided into two cultural fields: one of different degrees of loyalty to the power of the party and another of different degrees of distance to the power of the party. In between there was an area where it was not really clear whether loyalty or distance were stronger. In the distance culture West-German influence was stronger. In the loyalty culture the influence of Soviet institutions and everyday culture was stronger. Surprisingly surveys taken after reunification indicate that in East Germany as a whole through both areas of culture there was a common cultural development typical only for the GDR. It seems that cultural prestige was formed to a great part through a specific moralism which often was in contradiction to the everyday practice of the GDR. The elements of that moralism were antimilitarism, antifascism, and the belief of equality as the major criterion of justice. The experiences of division led to an Americanised and culturally middle-class West Germany and a moralistic egalitarian East Germany which had stayed more German and proletarian. These two cultures which had become different now suddenly were united but not as equals that together formed a new culture but under the absolute dominance of the West. East Germans who had lived in the certainty of being rich in comparison to Poland, Tchekoslovakia and Rumania suddenly were put into a society in which they earned an average of 42% of what West Germans earned on the average. This corresponds to the now current definition of poverty in social science. The most egalitarian society in German history suddenly was the poverty-population in unity. This was the first experience of East Germans in unity. In the following years the economic situation for East Germans improved, but in a very different fashion for the different segments of East German society. Today the elliptical structure has disappeared. In the meantime the average income of East Germans has risen to about two thirds of that of West Germans. Nearly everybody is better off than at the time of unification. Some have succeeded and become successful business-people like West Germans. Many positions of the judicial system, in the universities, in top administration have been taken over by West Germans. But there was no total replacement of East German elites by West Germans. Most purely functional elite-positions like engineers, teachers, medical professions continued to serve in their functions. And even those who had to leave fared better than the average East German. The diagram shows two blocked segments in today's East German society with very different political and cultural consequences. One is where normally the avant-garde is situated. It is the former East German political elite with much cultural capital who have lost their positions and have lost economic prestige. They react to their blocked position by idealising the old socialist society and their social and political values. Politically they and part of those in competition with West German elites support the PDS. This is shown in the diagram:

10 [Diagram 3] Diagram 3: The development of subcultures and countercultures in East Germany West German

Elites Economic Eco nomic in prestige Elites East Germany

Newly Rich Cultural Elites GDR- Rightwing elite Counterculture Cultural Avant- Institutionalised Poor Prestige gardes

On the left side of the diagram are the losers in the process of unification. They react to the blocked opportunity of improving their prestige position in the present society by adopting right wing, xenophobic positions which they know provokes the established West German political culture most. Their right wing extremism is very different from that in West Germany. It is not as hierarchical but more egalitarian. It is not as corporativistic but more anticapitalistic and socialistic. It is fiercely xenophobic, but multicultural at the same time by not claiming to be superior. It develops its own avant- garde and its own new right wing subculture. But above all it is anti West Germany. Both segments unite in their antipathy against West German everyday culture. In East Germany in the meantime only about one third identify with the present German democratic and capitalist system. Two thirds are either against it or couldn't care less. In most areas of West Germany unification has changed nothing except three things: The Zip-code numbers, solidarity tax, and for those with money tremendous possibilities to save taxes by investing in East Germany. Still many West Germans resent the process of Unification. Many have developed a concept of ethnicity about East Germans which often enough is reciprocated by East Germans who in the resentment of being second place in everything have developed a concept of being different and better as a group. Thus the experiences with division and unity in Germany seem to contain more division than unity. This is expressed by many recent surveys. About two thirds of West Germany think that the only ones who profited from unity are the East Germans. Nearly 11 symmetrically two thirds of East Germans think that only the West Germans profited from unity. Only in common projects in which questions of where participants come from do not count but criteria of performance become important the question of the "grace of Western birth" becomes less and less important. We can only hope that such projects become more and more frequent. Then unity can really become unity.

IV Conclusion Unification of two even only slightly different cultures can easily lead to a process of perceived indignities for one of the two when these differences – as little as they may be – are discounted in the process as illegitimate. Then economic difficulties that otherwise could be seen as a common task to master tend to be perceived as another demonstration of superiority and inequality by the “victorious” culture. Trust in common political institutions and readiness to engage in the political process becomes endangered and a tendency to create countercultures as a reaction to perceived political, economic, and cultural exclusion must be expected.

Literature: Bourdieu, Pierre, 1987: Die feinen Unterschiede - Kritik der gesellschaftlichen Urteilskraft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

Dicke, Klaus, Michael Edinger und Karl Schmitt, 2000: Politische Kultur im Freistaat Thüringen. Ergebnisse des Thüringen-Monitors 2000. Institut für Politikwissenschaft. Friedrich-Schiller- Universität Jena. Thüringer Landtag (Hg.). Drucksache 3/1106. .

Elias, Norbert, 1980: Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation - Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. 2 Bde. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

Förster, Peter, 1999: Die 25jährigen auf dem langen Weg in das vereinte Deutschland. Ergebnisse einer seit 1987 laufenden Längsschnittstudie, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 43-44: 20-31.

Förster, Peter, 2000: Junge Ostdeutsche im Jahr 10 nach der Vereinigung. Ja zur deutschen Einheit, aber Kritik am Gesellschaftssystem. Ausgewählte Ergebnisse einer systemübergreifenden Längsschnittstudie zum politischen Mentalitätswandel zwischen 1987 und 2000. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Pollack, Detlef, 1997: Das Bedürfnis nach sozialer Anerkennung - Der Wandel der Akzeptanz von Demokratie und Marktwirtschaft in Ostdeutschland, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 13: 3- 14.

Pollack, Detlef und Gert Pickel, 1998: Die ostdeutsche Identität. Erbe des DDR-Sozialismus oder Produkt der Wiedervereinigung? Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 41-42: 9-23.

12 Pollack, Detlev, 1999: Das geteilte Bewusstsein. Einstellungen zur sozialen Ungleichheit und zur Demokratie in Ost- und Westdeutschland 1990-1998,

Stöss, Richard, 1999: Rechtsextremismus im vereinten Deutschland. Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung. 2000 3. überarbeitete Auflage.

Szydlik, Marc, 1992: Arbeitseinkommen in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 2: 292- 314. von Berg, Heinz Lynen, 1994: Rechtsextremismus in Ostdeutschland seit der Wende. S. 103-126 in Wolfgang Kowalsky und Wolfgang Schröder (Hg.), Rechtsextremismus. Einführung und Forschungsbilanz. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Wagner, Wolf, 1996: Kulturschock Deutschland. Hamburg: Rotbuch.

13