A Missing Historical Variable? Long Run Effects of Landholding Inequality in Elections in Germany and Poland, 1895-2009

Why, has the syndrome of political disengagement, as represented most vividly by low rates of voter participation, been the outgrowth of the postcommunist transitions in Central Europe? In this paper we explore detailed county-level historical data between 1895 and 2009 from the territories formerly governed by the German Empire and comprising Germany and the western portion of Poland today. We demonstrate that a significant portion of variation in local-level voter turnout we observe in post-Communist elections can be traced back to nineteenth century patterns in rural social structure. In particular, we analyze detailed Kreis-level (county) Imperial census data to demonstrate that landholding inequality within the German Empire in the 19th century is negatively related to voter-turnout rates today, cutting across the contemporary Polish and German borders. Also, bolstering these findings, we investigate further historical evidence from the Weimar period and the period between 1945 and 1989 to test the viability of two alternative causal mechanisms that might explain these results.