Same Crisis, Divergent Trust? Examining East-West Differences in Political Trust during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Germany

The Covid-19 pandemic led to an initial increase in political trust across many countries, known as the rally-around-the-flag effect. However, our understanding of the long-term dy-namics and underlying mechanisms remains incomplete. Expanding upon previous research on the lasting impact of regime socialization, we examine the case of Germany’s division and reunification. We presume that – due to their socialist regime socialization – East Germans exhibit stronger preferences for crisis-related state intervention and, thus, demonstrate a stronger initial rally effect than West Germans. Conversely, for the pandemics’ second year, we hypothesize that the detrimental effects of containment measures, i.e., lockdowns, school and childcare closures, and short-time work, might amplify state scepticism due to disap-pointment with government action. We therefore presume a more pronounced decrease in po-litical trust in East compared to West Germany. We utilize data from the National Educational Panel Study (2017-2022, 20,587 person-years) linked to district-level information on inci-dence rates and government-imposed restriction measures. By drawing on variation in regime socialization and using a comprehensive set of control variables, we aim to disentangle our proposed theoretical mechanism from compositional East-West differences. Fixed-effects re-gression models reveal a weaker increase in political trust during the pandemic’s first year and a stronger decrease during its second year among East German respondents. This decrease is driven by younger respondents in particular, whereas older ones are characterized by increased levels of trust throughout the pandemic. Overall, our findings suggest that legacies of authori-tarian rule persist among older citizens. However, lower trust in the state and its institutions is more pronounced among younger respondents socialized during the societal and economic disruptions following reunification. Thus, our study contributes to understanding political trust during transformative crisis experiences and the role of regime socialization therein.