ABSTRACT
The central tenet of the “new institutionalism” in political science is the rather straightforward assertion that institutions have consequences—for the conduct of political life and, more broadly, for the life of individuals living under a particular political system. This chapter seeks to account for the thoroughness of east German institutional restructuring, survey its major dimensions, examine several of its consequences, and identify some of the relatively few islands of institutional continuity and the meaning they have acquired since unification. It suggests that the way in which German unification was realized made the political transformation even more drastic than it would otherwise have been and contributed to almost equally thoroughgoing changes in the economic and social spheres. East German political parties display a greater degree of continuity with the communist past than those in several other formerly communist countries. Primary and secondary education in eastern Germany were also restructured along west German lines.
