Communal and Exchange-Based Trust in Germany Thirty Years After Reunification: Convergence or Still an East–West Divide?

Abstract

ABSTRACT It is uncontested that political trust is highly relevant in democratic political systems. Although scholars have begun to study to a larger extent political trust in new democracies, this latter interest has faded away in recent times. To reinvigorate awareness of this area, thirty years after German reunification, we take stock of political trust in East and West Germany. Drawing on ESS data from 2002 to 2018 (ESS 1–9), we study empirically the convergence hypothesis in view of both the levels of political trust and the particular quality of citizens’ trust in its democratic institutions. Our findings show that we can still not speak of a convergence of the mere levels of trust in East and West Germany: East Germans do still display lower levels of trust in both representative and regulatory institutions. Regarding the quality of political trust, however, the gap between East and West is less pronounced. These findings are highly relevant for both research on the social and psychological underpinnings of trust and the assessment of the consequences of the undemocratic heritage for the German political system.