Germany’s Reunification - The Political Geography of Inequality - page 150

at the federal level. In the context of the centripetal system of representation
described in Chapter 4 , the courting of Eastern voters and control of regional
governments in the new states became a top political priority for both the CDU
(Christian Democratic Union) and the SPD (Social Democratic Party).
The political and economic consequences of Reunification generated a web
of economic and political incentives over two issues: what will be the pace
and scope of the effort to integrate the new l ander, and who is going to meet
the cost of such efforts. In what follows I address how the different actors
approached these two issues and the extent to which their preferences and
political strategies bear any linkages with the theoretical mechanisms identified
earlier.
In political terms, the early measures after Reunification reflected Kohl's
concerns for political survival. The federal government saw the East as a critical
source of political support, one that could not be neglected if a stable majority
at the federal level was to be achieved. The SPD experience in 1990 proved
these fears right. Because of voicing its opposition to transfers early on in the
process, the SPD suffered a crashing defeat. As a result, both parties realized
that they could only win national leadership by depoliticizing the East-West
Divide. The political alienation of the East and the rise of “regional” specific
interest parties was to be prevented at all costs. In addition, Kohl was driven
by short term electoral concerns:
only a high pace unification would guarantee the governing Christian-Democratic liberal
coalition government the opportunity to time the all German elections sufficiently early
to take advantage of the initial popular enthusiasm and optimism before its cost and
frictions could surface and lead to disenchantment. (Wiesenthal 2003 : 39)
Concerned with its electoral fortune in the short term, the incumbent coalition
decided to speed up the East's economic integration.
The political fears of the major national parties had their economic correlate
in business and labor organizations. Both shared two concerns: the potential
creation of a low-wage area that would put downward pressures on wages
in the West (labor), unravel the system of industrial relations, and reduce the
market share of western firms (business) 12 ; and, especially, the risk “that East
Germans would migrate to the West in massive numbers had their former
country been turned into a low-wage enclave of the unified German economy”
(Streeck 2009 : 225). Finally, trade unions and business organizations were also
concerned with the risk of political radicalization should the East be allowed
to undergo a more draconian transition to capitalism.
This set of preferences reflect the workings of two important elements of
the analytical model: employers and western wage earners (high income people
in high income regions) are supportive of redistribution towards the East to
limit the negative externalities associated with excessive internal migrations
12 Most critically, neither unions nor business organizations in the west had any interest in seeing
eastern counterparts emerge. For a more detailed account of the position of the main labor and
business organizations during the process, see Ritter ( 2006 ); and Streeck ( 2009 ).