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42851. Corporeality As a Weapon: Siegmund Breibart's Embodiment of Muskeljudentum

Author:
Matthew J. Sherman
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Ideations of corporeality are situated at the crux of "muscular Judaism" in early twentieth- century Europe. The sporting event was viewed as a battlefield for equalization. In the ideological context of Muskeljudentum, the apathy of Talmudjudentum (Talmudic Judaism) was replaced by exercise, in which the strengthening of the corporeal would rejuvenate the psychical. Jewish strongman Siegmund Breitbart capitalized on his masculine feats of strength and aesthetic appeal by creating public performances, which displayed not only militarized corporeality, but also provided a stage for the promotion of "muscular Judaism," through both symbolic and literal representations of Zionist ideology. Breitbart reappropriated masculine Jewish corporeality, embodied corporeal notions of reciprocity at the core of Muskeljudentum, and found individual agency through the militarized aesthetic and motion of his body.
Political Geography:
Europe

42852. 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

42853. Book Reviews

Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Abstract:David Meskill, Optimizing the German Workforce: Labor Administration from Bismarck to the Economic Miracle (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010) Reviewed by Gregory Baldi;Jan-Werner Müller, Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011) Reviewed by John Bendix;Douglas B. Klusmeyer and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Immigration Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009) Reviewed by Suzanna M. Crage;Derek Hastings, Catholicism the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) Reviewed by Robert P. Ericksen;Review of Pertti Ahonen, Death at the Berlin Wall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) Reviewed by Hope M. Harrison;Wolfgang Scholz, The Social Budget of Germany: Keeping the Welfare State in Perspective (Berlin: edition sigma, 2009) Reviewed by John Bendix;Philip Broadbent and Sabine Hake, eds., Berlin. Divided City, 1945-1989(New York: Berghahn Books, 2010) Reviewed by Helge F. Jani;Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, 2010) Reviewed by Larson Powell
Political Geography:
New York and Germany

42854. Intersectionality and the Substantive Representation of Migrant Interests in Germany

Author:
Barbara Donovan
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
The paper uses the concept of intersectionality to examine the experiences of politicians with migrant backgrounds in Germany. The last decade has seen a significant increase in the number of persons with migrant backgrounds integrating into political parties and winning elections to both federal and regional legislatures. Do the migrant experiences of these persons shape their politics? Theories of substantive representation have suggested that gender shapes representation. What about the racial and ethnic identities that often coexist with immigrant status? Moreover, how do those identities and experiences interact with the prerogatives of party, partisanship, and regional representation? This study uses data gathered from both the federal and regional level to explore and explain the role of migrant-related concerns in the political behavior and articulated preferences of politicians with migrant background in Germany. It further explores how these relate to gender, careers, representational roles, and partisan identification. The article concludes that a consideration of the interaction of migrant identity with other factors allows us to see multiple dimensions of representation in Germany today.
Political Geography:
Germany

42855. Party Formation and Dilemmas of Opportunity Structure: Freie Wähler in the German Political System

Author:
Helga A. Welsh
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
The Freie Wähler (free voters, FW) offer the rare chance to analyze parties in the making. Their long-time anchoring in local elections, centrist, middle-class political orientation, and bifurcated organizational structure distinguish them from other new political parties that aspire to participate in Land (state), national and European elections. Against the backdrop of FW success in Bavaria, where they received 10.2 percent of the vote in 2008, this article explores the FW expansion to the state level but not their national aspirations. In contrast to most studies that emphasize opportunity structures that work in favor of new political actors, this article highlights their dialectical nature. For example, the FW self-image is based on their difference from political parties, but the rules of the game push them to the status of "almost-party" at the local level and parties at the Land level. Their local roots are a source of legitimacy, but when they reach beyond, divisions among members and voters hold back their electoral fortunes. Independence and issue orientation are appealing to some voters but hamper the establishment of a clear identity and effective campaigning in state elections. Success for FW candidates is linked to the weakness of the dominant parties in the conservative camp. Spatial-temporal conditions are significant in considering the future of the FW at the Land level.
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

42856. "Keep the Home Fires Burning": Fairy Tale Heroes and Heroines in an East German Heimat

Author:
Sonja Fritzsche
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
The article argues that the films Das kalte Herz (The Cold Heart, 1950) and Der Teufel von Mühlenberg (The Devil of Mill Mountain, 1955) functioned in two ways-as fairy tales and also as new Heimat or “homeland' tale. Besides Wolfgang Staudte's The Story of Little Mook, these two films were the only two live action fairy tale films that appeared before East Germany's DEFA made its first Grimm feature adaptation in 1956, The Brave Little Tailor. Yet, unlike the Grimm-based films that take place in a generic “forest,“ these first two films take place explicitly in the Black Forest and the Harz Mountains, two locations synonymous with the beauty and timeless nature of past notions of German Heimat. The two films also engaged with the growing monetary and symbolic success of the West's postwar Heimatfilme or homeland films. The article focuses on how The Cold Heart and Mill Mountain contributed to the rearticulation of the emerging Heimat discourse in the early German Democratic Republic, with a particular focus on gender.
Political Geography:
Germany

42857. Book Reviews

Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Abstract: William Collins Donahue, Holocaust as Fiction: Bernhard Schlink's "Nazi" Novels and Their Films(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)Reviewed by Margaret McCarthyTheodor W. Adorno, Guilt and Defense: On the Legacies of National Socialism in Postwar Germany, edited, translated, and introduced by Jeffrey K. Olick and Andrew J. Perrin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010)Reviewed by Gregory R. Smulewicz-ZuckerFriedrich Pollock, Theodor W. Adorno, and Colleagues, Group Experiment and other Writings: The Frankfurt School on Public Opinion in Postwar Germany, edited and translated by Andrew J. Perrin and Jeffrey K. Olick (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).Reviewed by Jan BoestenGabriele Mueller and James M. Skidmore, eds. Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria(Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012).Reviewed by Sabine von MeringChristopher J. Fischer, Alsace to the Alsatians? Visions and Divisions of Alsatian Regionalism, 1870-1939(New York: Berghahn Books, 2010)Reviewed by Jennifer A. Yoder
Political Geography:
New York, Germany, and Austria

42858. L'institutionnalisation du Parlement européen

Author:
Antonin Cohen and Anna-Christina L. Knudsen
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Lors de la dernière élection présidentielle, en France, trois candidats sur dix étaient membres du Parlement européen – Eva Joly, Marine Le Pen et JeanLuc Mélenchon ayant tous été élus ou réélus lors des élections européennes de 2009. Mieux. Les six principaux candidats à la présidence de la République étaient ou avaient été membres du Parlement européen – François Bayrou, François Hollande et Nicolas Sarkozy ayant siégé, il est vrai peu de temps, durant la cinquième législature.
Political Geography:
Europe

42859. L'autonomisation du « Parlement européen »

Author:
Antonin Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Les organisations intergouvernementales européennes restent trop souvent analysées de manière isolées les unes des autres. Cet article entend au contraire illustrer le processus d'institutionnalisation du champ du pouvoir européen en prenant pour objet les interdépendances évolutives entre ces différentes organisations. En analysant le recrutement parlementaire des quatre assemblées supranationales du Conseil de l'Europe, des Communautés européennes, de l'Union de l'Europe occidentale et de l'Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord des années 1950 aux années 1970, cet article montre que le cumul des sièges au sein de ces assemblées tend à décroître au fil des années, contribuant à l'autonomisation de ce qui est alors rebaptisé « Parlement européen », ainsi qu'à la socialisation d'un nombre toujours croissant de parlementaires nationaux à la politique européenne supranationale. Il montre, en outre, la corrélation entre longévité, cumul des sièges et capital juridique, en isolant un petit groupe de parlementaires multipositionnés connus pour avoir joué des rôles très variés dans la construction européenne, comme Fernand Dehousse, PierreHenri Teitgen et bien d'autres. Cet article repose sur une base de données regroupant plusieurs centaines de parlementaires.
Political Geography:
Europe

42860. L'Europe estelle un État comme les autres ?

Author:
Guilloaume Sacriste
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
La polity communautaire, plutôt que d'avoir autonomisé une sphère du politique à l'image des processus d'émergence des Étatsnations occidentaux, apparaît comme un système politique institutionnalisant sa propre hétéronomie socioéconomique. C'est l'hypothèse défendue dans cet article en prenant comme point d'entrée le travail des parlementaires européens de la commission juridique de l'Assemblée communautaire des années 1960. Les logiques sociales ainsi mises en évidence permettent de conclure sur la nature des outputs de cette commission : ces derniers brouillent la distinction public/privé au principe des ÉtatsNations.
Political Geography:
Europe