The Origins of Common Identity: Division, Homogenization Policies and Identity Formation in Alsace-Lorraine

Sirus Dehdari () and Kai Gehring

No 6556, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We exploit the fact that disagreements in the German leadership after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 led to a quasi-exogenous division of Alsace and Lorraine to provide rare evidence of group identity formation within historically homogeneous regions. In line with the rejection-identification hypothesis, people in the treated area which experienced a change in nation-status and were exposed to repressive homogenization policies express a stronger regional identity and support more regional autonomy today. On average, subjects with a stronger regional also express a stronger European identity, which we exploit in a regression discontinuity design at the municipal level to reveal whether these identity differences are causal. We find that support for the European Union is significantly stronger in two crucial referenda, a result that is robust across different specifications and bandwidths, and not driven by language differences, large agglomerations or distance to foreign countries. The effect seems to be the strongest for the first two age cohorts after World War II and diminishes for later generations.

Keywords: group identity; identity formation; homogenization policies; assimilation; rejection-identification hypothesis; persistence of preferences; Alsace-Lorraine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 H70 H80 N40 Z19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-cta, nep-eur and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6556.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Origins of Common Identity: Division, Homogenization Policies and Identity Formation in Alsace-Lorraine (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6556

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().