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2. Losing Literature: The Reduction of the GDR to History
- Author:
- Elizabeth Priester Steding
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Federal and state curricula not only determine much of what is taught in school, they also reveal what is important to political and cultural leaders and ultimately help shape a country's narrative. This article examines how the GDR currently is addressed in history and literature curricula for the Oberstufe. While state history curricula consistently require coverage of the GDR, literature curricula vary widely, with a few states clearly including GDR literature and many states completely omitting it. If GDR literature is ignored in state curricula, it risks being ignored in the classroom, limiting student understanding of the GDR to historical facts and depriving them of an opportunity to better understand both past and current German society.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
3. Eastern German Cooperative Farming: On the Cusp of a New Generation
- Author:
- Dylan Bennett
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- The decline and dissolution of eastern Germany's agricultural production cooperatives (APC s) has been anticipated by formal economic theory since reunification on the grounds of inefficiency. 1 Yet, more recent scholarship on the varieties of capitalism tells us that efficiency does not lead to simple convergence of market forms, but rather that different institutional solutions and social systems of production can achieve desired ends—including efficiency—with varied designs. 2 Today, the cooperative farm sector, under- pinned by conservative, democratic governance, persists without naiveté and little nostalgia on the cusp of a new postcommunist generation and still accounts for the largest share of agricultural production in eastern Germany. Even if the cooperative farming sector follows a slow decline, the firms will convert or persist depending less on their ability to achieve efficiency as on their ability to maintain productive land holdings, and to promote a new generation of management and enthusiastic members committed not to nostalgia but toward the future of their own lives, their firms, and their local communities. Some of the cooperatives are likely to persist for a long time. In this article, in an effort to understand the environment in which cooperatives face the future, I provide an eyewitness account of the internal politics between workers and bosses, highlight survival strategies, consider the institutional constraints and supports facing cooperatives, and sketch portraits of the farmers who face the task of carrying the cooperative tradition forward.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
4. Book Reviews
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Until German reunification in 1990, western social sciences had never been particularly interested in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as an object of research. The fact that western scholars refrained, for various political reasons, from researching GDR society, as well as its successful seclusion from external analysis, contributed to the marginalization of social research within West German academia on its eastern neighbor. With the collapse of the socialist German state in 1989, however, the situation changed completely. All of a sudden, there was an enormous demand for expert knowledge as the remains of an entire political system and the subjects that it left behind needed to be mapped, measured, and categorized.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
5. Economic and Industrial Cooperation Between France and Germany: Assessment and Future Prospects
- Author:
- Jean-Marc Trouille
- Publication Date:
- 04-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Economy and industry have traditionally been major stakes within the Franco-German relationship. This article examines French and German economic and industrial relations, and their importance for these countries' joint leadership in Europe. It investigates the level of economic interdependence and of macroeconomic convergence between the two largest Eurozone economies, industrial cooperation between French and German companies, discrepancies in their trade relations and investment flows, divergences in their respective economic and industrial policies, and the dichotomy between partnership and rivalry in their long-standing relationship. Finally, this article assesses the risk of increasing fiscal and industrial imbalance between the two economies and draws conclusions on its implications for the Franco-German entente in Europe.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, France, and Germany
6. Leadership in Hard Times: Germany, France, and the Management of the Eurozone Crisis
- Author:
- Joachim Schild
- Publication Date:
- 04-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- France and Germany played a highly visible leadership role during the management of the Euro crisis and the efforts to design a reform governance framework for the Euro area. This article provides a conceptualization of this bilateral leadership, which is then applied to trace the process of Franco-German leadership during the ongoing crisis of the Euro area. Franco-German leadership grew ever more important as the crisis deepened. After the French presidential election of 2012, however, the divergences between the two core states of the Euro area deepened and made the exercise of joint leadership more difficult to achieve. I consider this leadership role to be based on a compromise by proxy logic in which France and Germany, starting from divergent positions, strike bilateral compromises acceptable to other member states that feel their own interests are represented by either France or Germany. Their common capacity to find suitable remedies to cope with crisis, however, is not beyond doubt. The Franco-German approach followed an additive logic, combining the temporary and permanent financial support schemes-a French preference-with a concomitant strengthening of fiscal rules advocated by Germany. In the end, the two governments did not develop a common comprehensive strategy based on a shared conceptual framework.
- Political Geography:
- France and Germany
7. The Élysée Treaty and European Integration Theory
- Author:
- Yannis Karagiannis
- Publication Date:
- 04-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- According to neoliberal institutionalism, states create international institutions to limit information asymmetries, monitor compliance, and ensure the credibility of commitments to agreed-upon policies-in short, to minimize transaction costs. Although this view can help explain the delegation of powers to supranational bodies such as the European Commission, it cannot account for the signature of the Élysée Treaty between France and Germany in January 1963, which reversed the logic of supranational delegation. Understanding the causes and the consequences of this apparently anomalous event is therefore a major challenge facing scholars of international organizations, European integration, and German foreign policy alike. To start addressing the issue, this article develops an explanation based on incomplete contracts theory. In a nutshell, I argue that the Élysée Treaty aimed at securing the equal treatment of French and German interests in the process of European integration, thereby allowing the deepening of European integration.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Europe, France, and Germany
8. The Élysée Treaty in the Context of Franco-German Socio-cultural Relations
- Author:
- Corine Defrance
- Publication Date:
- 04-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Even though the terms “culture“ and “reconciliation“ are absent in the Élysée Treaty, this article looks at forms of cooperation that the Treaty nevertheless generated in the fields of education and youth, as well as foreign affairs and defense. In fact, the Treaty was quite important for the development of cultural and socio-cultural relations between France and Germany and the interactions between states and civil societies. Yet, contrary to the political rhetoric often heard, the Élysée Treaty was not the “year zero“ of Franco-German rapprochement. The Treaty also has to be evaluated in terms of the new impetus it provided for societal initiatives, as well as its limits in the cultural field. The article also assesses recent debates among intellectuals in the two countries: Do the two nations still have something to share at the cultural level or have they distanced themselves from each other? Has the Élysée Treaty really exhausted its integrative capacities regarding socio-cultural matters? In sum, the Treaty has become an important framework for Franco-German socio-cultural cooperation, even if “culture“ was not its main aim, and governments are far from having been the main actors in this field. But, thanks to the joint process of consultation and institutionalization, experiments with bilateral forms of exchanges and cooperation often occurred before being re-applied to a larger framework.
- Political Geography:
- France and Germany
9. Sarkozy and Merkel: The Undeniable Relevance of the Franco-German Bilateral Relationship in Europe
- Author:
- Francesca Vassallo
- Publication Date:
- 04-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- In 2013 France and Germany will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Élysée Treaty, signed by the two countries to create a close collaboration in the interest of peace and prosperity. Over the course of five decades, different couples of French Presidents and German Chancellors have dealt with the Paris-Berlin relationship in slightly different ways, some with more success than others. Despite the many changes in the European context and to the balance in the alliance between France and Germany, the initial motivation and meaning of the treaty remains astonishingly valid today, especially in light of its positive contribution to European integration. Even with many possible factors weakening the two countries' core relations, the Franco-German duo retains its historically dominant influence in successful European governance, as the recent Merkozy situation showed.
- Political Geography:
- Europe, France, Germany, and Berlin
10. Changing Partners at Fifty? French Security Policy after Libya in Light of the Élysée Treaty
- Author:
- Colette Mazzucelli
- Publication Date:
- 04-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- The 2011 Libya campaign highlighted the divergence of interests between France and Germany within the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in matters of Middle East and global security. This divergence calls for a reassessment of the meaning of their bilateral cooperation, as defined in the Treaty of Friendship between France and Germany, otherwise known as the Élysée Treaty, signed on 22 January 1963 by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle. This article focuses on France, which engaged militarily in Libya cooperating with the United Kingdom as its principal European partner. Germany, for reasons explained by its history, political culture, and the nature of its federal system, chose to abstain in the United Nations vote to authorize the campaign. These differences between France and Germany suggest a contrast in their respective security and, particularly defense, policy objectives on the fiftieth anniversary of the Élysée Treaty.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- France, Libya, and Germany
11. Coming to Terms with a Misinterpreted Past? Rethinking the Historical Antecedents of Germany's 1999 Citizenship Reform
- Author:
- Andreas Fahrmeir
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- The article contends that the significance attributed to the 1999 citizenship reform in Germany is closely linked to a particular reading of the history of German citizenship policies. This reading, which remained dominant until the 1990s, assigned a crucial role for Germany's exclusionary citizenship policies to the law of descent, which seemed to be deeply ingrained in successive German states policies and practices from the nineteenth century on. Arguing that recent historiography on citizenship has called attention to the significant degree of variation between periods of openness and closure, as well as highlighting restrictive naturalization policies as a key ingredient of ethnic closure, the author contends that this focus was misplaced. Accordingly, the disappointing effects of a law that focused on the automatic transmission of citizenship while paying less attention to making voluntary transition to citizenship easier are not particularly surprising.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
12. Germany's Citizenship Policy in Comparative Perspective
- Author:
- Marc Morjé Howard
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- This article puts the 1999 German Nationality Act into a comparative European perspective. By applying a common measure of the relative restrictiveness or inclusiveness of a country's citizenship policy to the countries of the EU-15 at two different time periods, it provides an analysis of change both within and across countries. From this perspective, Germany has clearly moved "up" from having the single most restrictive law before the 1999 reform to a more moderate policy today. Yet Germany's major "liberalizing change" was also tempered by a significant "restrictive backlash." The German case therefore provides support for a broader theoretical argument about the potential for mobilized anti-immigrant public opinion to nullify the liberalization that often occurs within the realm of elite politics.
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Germany
13. A Bridge or Barrier to Incorporation? Germany's 1999 Citizenship Reform in Critical Perspective
- Author:
- Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos and Karen Schönwälder
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- This article probes the consequences of Germany's 1999 citizenship reform as it pertains to the incorporation of immigrants. We maintain that the law's principled rejection of dual citizenship and related stipulation that children born into German nationality via the law's revolutionary jus soli provision choose between their German citizenship or that of their non-German parents between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three is unfair, potentially unconstitutional, and likely unworkable in administrative terms. We also argue that the decline in naturalization rates in Germany since 2000 is due to a combination of legal, administrative, and symbolic barriers in the law, as well as a lack of incentives for naturalization for immigrants from European Union member states and other rich industrialized countries. We believe that progress in the area of incorporation will require a shift in outlooks on the part of German political elites, such that immigrants are seen as potential members of a diverse community of free and equal citizens rather than untrustworthy and threatening outsiders.
- Topic:
- Law
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Germany
14. "What Do You Expect? That We All Dance and Be Happy?" Second-Generation Immigrants and Germany's 1999 Citizenship Reform
- Author:
- Sandra Bucerius
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Based on a five-year ethnography, this article looks at Germany's citizenship reform of 1999 from the perspective of a population that is often at the center of attention: second generation immigrant drug dealers. While the reform had the potential to make a significant difference for this group, with respect to both their legal status in the country and perception of Germany, the findings of this article show that the reform did not have such an impact. On the contrary, the reform seems to have had the opposite effect, alienating the young men even more from Germany by keeping citizenship out of reach for them. While some have argued that in the light of supranational citizenship norms and the discourse of citizenship rights as human rights, national citizenship becomes increasingly unimportant as new forms of post-national citizenship gradually emerge, this does not seem to hold true for the young men of this study.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
15. Climate Policy Outcomes in Germany: Environmental Performance and Environmental Damage in Eleven Policy Areas
- Author:
- Roger Karapin
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Germany has reduced its emissions of greenhouse gases more than almost any other industrialized democracy and is exceeding its ambitious Kyoto commitment. Hence, it is commonly portrayed as a climate-policy success story, but the situation is actually much more complex. Generalizing Germany's per-capita emissions to all countries or its emissions reductions to all industrialized democracies would still very likely produce more than a two-degree rise in global temperature. Moreover, analyzing the German country-case into eleven subcases shows that it is a mixture of relative successes and failures. This analysis leads to three main conclusions. First, high relative performance and high environmental damage can coexist. Second, we should see national cases in a differentiated way and not only in terms of their aggregate performances. Third, researchers on climate policies should more often begin with outcomes, work backward to policies, and be prepared for some surprises. Ironically, the most effective government interventions may not be explicit climate policies, such as the economic transformation of eastern Germany. Moreover, the lack of policy-making in certain areas may undercut progress made elsewhere, including unregulated increases in car travel, road freight, and electricity consumption. Research on climate and environmental policies should focus on somewhat different areas of government intervention and ask different questions.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Germany
16. Evolution and Normalization: Historical Consciousness in Germany
- Author:
- Felix Philipp Lutz
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- German political culture has been undergoing gradual but significant changes since unification. Military engagements in combat missions, the introduction of a professional army, and a remarkable loss of recent historical knowledge mostly within the younger generations are hallmarks of the new millennium. Extensive education about the Holocaust is still prevalent and there is a strong continuity of attitudes and orientations toward the Nazi era and the Holocaust reaching back to the 1980s. Nevertheless, a lack of knowledge about history-not only the World War II period, but also about East and West Germany-in the age group of people under thirty is staggering. The fading away of the generation of victims who are the last ones to tell the story of persecution during the Holocaust and a parallel rise of new actors and technologies, present challenges to the educational system and the current political culture of Germany.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Germany
17. Volatile Counter-Cosmopolitans: Explaining the Electoral Performance of Radical Right Parties in Poland and Eastern Germany
- Author:
- Lars Rensmann
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Despite several breakthroughs that indicate radical right parties' significant electoral potential, they remain highly volatile players in both Poland and eastern Germany. This is puzzling because radical right competitors can benefit from favorable politico-cultural conditions shaped by postcommunist legacies. The electoral markets in Poland and the eastern German Länder show low levels of affective party identification and low levels of political trust in mainstream parties and government institutions. Most importantly, there is a sizeable, yet largely unrepresented segment of voters who share salient counter-cosmopolitan preferences. They point to a “silent counterrevolution“ against globalization and cosmopolitan value change that displays substantive affinities to radical right ideology. Offering a transborder regional comparison of the four most relevant radical right parties and their conditions for electoral mobilization in Poland and eastern Germany, this article argues that the radical right's crossnational volatility-and often underperformance-in elections is mainly caused by internal supply side factors. They range from organizational deficiencies, leadership issues, and internal feuds, to strategic failures and a lack of democratic responsiveness. In turn, the disequilibrium between counter-cosmopolitan demand and its political representation is likely to be reduced if radical right competitors become more effective agents of electoral mobilization-or new, better organized ones emerge.
- Topic:
- Globalization
- Political Geography:
- Germany
18. Book Reviews
- Publication Date:
- 10-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- Abstract:James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shock, eds. What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011)Reviewed by Willy JouJames Bohman, Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007)Reviewed by by Conrad KingRitter, Gerhard, The Price of German Unity. Reunification and the Crisis of the Welfare State, translated by Richard Deveson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Reviewed by Joyce M. MushabenMichaela Hoenicke Moore, Know Your Enemy. The American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Reviewed by John BendixElena Mancini, Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).Reviewed by Leila J. Rupp Paul Betts, Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Reviewed by Charles S. Maier
- Political Geography:
- New York and Germany
19. The Commemorative Ceremonies of the Expellees: Tag der Heimat and Volkstrauertag
- Author:
- Jeffrey Luppes
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- This article discusses the respective origins and developments of the German expellee organizations' chief days of commemoration, the Tag der Heimat and the Volkstrauertag, and investigates key elements of the commemorative ceremonies that take place on these occasions, in particular, their liturgical setups, thematic mottos, recitations of Totenehrungen, and the performance of "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden." Despite assertions that the expulsion has been insufficiently commemorated in the Federal Republic, and in spite of recent calls for a national day of remembrance to rectify this commemorative lacuna, this article shows how the expulsion has been memorialized on various levels for decades. Moreover, it argues that the expellee organizations' historical narratives have been one-sided and de-contextualized and sheds light on how the ceremonies bring these understandings of the past to life by highlighting German wartime suffering.
- Political Geography:
- Germany
20. The Concept of "Normality" in German Foreign Policy since Unification
- Author:
- Hans Kundnani
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- German Politics and Society
- Institution:
- German Politics and Society Journal
- Abstract:
- In this paper I examine the use of the concept of "normality" in debates about German foreign policy since unification. In the early 1990s, left-wing intellectuals such as Jürgen Habermas tended to criticize the idea of "normality" in favor of a form of German exceptionalism based on responsibility for the Nazi past. A foreign policy based on the idea of "normality" was associated above all with the greater use of military force, which the right advocated and the left opposed. Thus, "normality" became a synonym for Bündnisfähigkeit. Yet, from the mid 1990s onwards, some Social Democrats such as Egon Bahr began to use the concept of "normality" to refer instead to a foreign policy based on sovereignty and the pursuit of national interests. Although a consensus has now emerged in Germany around this realist definition of foreign-policy "normality," it is inadequate to capture the complex shift in the foreign policy of the Federal Republic since unification.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy
- Political Geography:
- Germany
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