Administrative areas and regional identity formation: The case of East Germany
利用1990年德国统一时东德部分县归属不确定的自然实验，发现这种不确定性导致州选举投票率下降最多2.5个百分点，表明行政区划变动会削弱公民对区域的认同和政治参与。
Changing regional administrative structures may have unintended consequences for citizens’ identification with their respective regions. We exploit a historical quasi-experiment to provide novel evidence on the formation of sub-national identities with changing administrative boundaries. During the German Reunification in 1990, federal states in East Germany were re-established. Some counties were located at the intersection of former GDR districts and historical federal states, creating uncertainty about their future state affiliation. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show that in counties with initially unclear state affiliation, voter turnout in state elections after 1990 decreases by up to 2.5 percentage points. Turnout in national and local elections does not show significant difference. We argue that the uncertainty about their regional affiliation diminished citizens’ political engagement by undermining their identification with the federal state level.