Behind the wall: the lack of interaction between east and west and the rise of the radical right

Abstract What explains the rise of radical right-wing parties in post-socialist Europe? Previous research attributes this phenomenon to the legacies of socialism, emphasizing the macro-socialization processes in education and civil society. This study introduces a novel perspective by highlighting the significance of limited interaction with the non-socialist states, proposing that such interactions could have facilitated micro-socialization processes that counteracted the regime’s indoctrination efforts. By analyzing the effect of cross-border traffic agreements between East and West Germany, it is found that areas with increased Western contact during the socialist era exhibit significantly less support for the radical right thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Moreover, employing entropy balancing to adjust for socioeconomic differences in the totalitarian period, this research demonstrates that individuals from these areas are half as likely to support the Alternative for Germany today, compared to a reweighted control group. This research offers a novel mechanism detailing how Western interactions could challenge entrenched socialist legacies, contributing significantly to the discourse on political socialization and the dynamics of political culture in post-socialist Europe.