University of California at Berkeley, Center for German and European Studies

The Postwar Transformation of Germany Democracy, Prosperity and Nationhood
November 30 - December 2, 1995
University of California Berkeley

Building Democracy and Changing Institutions: The Professional Civil Service in the Federal Republic of Germany

Gregg O. Kvistad Dept. of Political Science University of Denver

Working Paper 5.31

The founding of the Federal Republic of Germany as a democracy had two primary negative referents: the institutional weakness of the Weimar Republic that made it susceptible to the Nazi seizure of power and the authoritarian statist tradition of the nineteenth century. This essay argues that the institutionalization of the professional civil service in the early Federal Republic drew selectively on these negative examples, somewhat ambiguously exchanging the location of political parties and the professional civil service, but retaining substantial elements of subsequent redefinition of the role of the German citizen. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, German statism was rendered "inappropriate" not only for German society, but also for the institutional identity of Germany's venerated professional civil service.

The Contemporary Power of Memory: The Dilemmas for German Foreign Policy

Andrei S. Markovits Board of Studies in Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz Simon Reich Dept. of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

Working Paper 5.32

Collective memory matters in the formulation and implementation of any country's foreign policy. This is a fortiori the case in today's Germany where policy makers and the public confront an array of collective memories which are mutually antagonistic, often contradictory and still highly contentious. After presenting an argument for the validity of collective memory as a decisive factor in the creation and choice of policy, the paper offers a comparative evaluation of collective memory's contemporary relevance and continued permanence. It then describes the present "memory map" of Germany and concludes with some speculative thoughts on Europe.

Institutions, Historical Memory, and the Enduring Transformation of German Foreign Policy

Thomas Banchoff Dept. of Government Georgetown University

Working Paper 5.33

This paper explores the interaction of international institutions and historical memory in shaping German foreign policy at two crucial junctures: the postwar 1950s and the post-cold war 1990s. It argues that institutional approaches alone provide an insufficient explanation for Konrad Adenauer's policy of western integration and Helmut Kohl's emphasis on solidarity with the West. In each case, ambiguity at the level of international institutions allowed for significant foreign policy alternatives. And in each case, historical memory--reflection on the national past and its implications for the present--informed the particular policies pursued. Only an approach which examines institutions, historical memory, and their interaction, can adequately explain the postwar transformation of German foreign policy and its persistence after reunification.

Germany's Place in the World

Wolfgang Krieger Dept. of History Universitat Marburg

Working Paper 5.34

Krieger argues against the widely held assumption that uncertainties about Germany's "place in the world," has less to do with concerns over Germany's Nazi past and some "new assertiveness," than it does with a radical break in German foreign policy from a long established and widely understood tradition. Krieger focuses on Germany's decision, after the war, to build a European Community with a subsequent loss of sovereignty for individual member states. Traditionally most European states have rigidly asserted national rights. Germany's foray into regional institutions has unsettled a widely accepted way of performing and understanding international relations. For years after the war, this deviation towards regionalism was accepted by Germany's allies because it fit in well with the western allies' goals of thwarting both the Soviet threat and the reunification of Germany. Krieger argues that today, having achieved these goals, Germany's downplaying its own "national interests" could prove to be counterproductive.

Deutschland, Whose Model? Gender and the Retreat of the German Social Welfare System in the Age of Globalization

Patricia Davis Dept. of Government and International Studies University of Notre Dame Simon Reich Dept. of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

Working Paper 5.35

These authors examine the idea of a German model and argue that the usefulness and sustainability of this vision is questionable. This vision sees Germany as a stable social partnership between its various corporatist components. In fact, the authors argue that this depiction of German society has never been accurate. Whereas there is the appearance of social stability and egalitarianism, in fact, the German social market economy is patriarchal and inegalitarian. Over the last few decades, the tremendous success of Germany's economic performance has masked the inequalities of German society, making the promulgation of the German model possible (many even advocated exporting this model to other countries). As Germany's economy contracts however, the contradictions, patriarchal values and discriminatory practices that underlie the German social compact will manifest themselves to a greater and greater degree. The authors catalogue the ways in which German entitlement programs have built into them various discriminatory practices with harmful effects on women, the poor, and non-German ethnic minorities. They argue that these practices are all the more harmful in that they are disguised by the assumption of social harmony which makes it impossible to address them through the political process.

Two Discourses of Citizenship in Germany: The Difference Between Public Debate and Administrative Practice

Jost Halfmann Dept. of Sociology Institut für Soziologie, TU Dresden

Working Paper 5.36

The recent policy changes concerning immigration and citizenship in Germany are interpreted as outcomes of the conflictual interaction between public deliberations and administrative practices. While these changes were viewed by both the public and the state as responses to an emerging crisis of the stability of German nationhood, the public and the state placed the problems of migration and citizenship in a different context. The public debated these issues in the context of moral obligations resulting from a xenophobic past; the administrative system treated them in the context of the constitutional imperative to further the social inte gration of the residents of Germany. Further conflicts over these issues seem likely in Germany; the nation has yet to adjust to a situation of continuous future immigration. This will put pressure on the public and the state to find new solutions to the problem of membership in the German nation-state.

German Responses to Extremist Challengers, 1949-1994

Peter H. Merkl Dept. of Political Science University of California, Santa Barbara

Working Paper 5.37

This essay examines strategies of the FRG to keep extremist challenges a la Weimar from upsetting German constitutional democracy. It begins with provisions of the 1949 Basic Law and the policies of democratic leaders to coopt rather than antagonize the old Nazis. It emphasizes the importance of economic and political strength, the adoption of party government, judicial means of defense, and militant "democracy" against neo-Nazis and communist challenges. The evident success of these stratagems is observed through the crises of the entire period from 1949 through the ordeal and aftermath of German unification.

Building Democracy: Judicial Review and the German Rechtsstaat

Donald P. Kommers Dept. of Government and International Studies, School of Law, University of Notre Dame

Working Paper 5.38

Kommers examines the institution of judicial review in Germany and its contribution to the stability of German democracy. He argues against the notion that economic stability and prosperity matters more than political institutions in determining the fate of a nation's democracy. In looking at judicial review, he catalogs ways in which potentially explosive issues have been dealt with and how the institutional structuring of judicial review has helped to resolve these issues in a democratic fashion. In setting up the Basic Law after the end of the war, efforts were made to distance the postwar state from prior constitutions. The Basic Law was made the permanent, unalterable and supreme law of the land. Its crowning achievement was the creation of the Federal Constitutional Court. Whereas initially, a tradition of legalism and underdeveloped political culture characterized the postwar republic, over time, the Constitutional Court has managed to create a new political culture whereby the Basic Law has become a living document, invoked and authoritative in all major issues concerning the German nation. These decisions are today widely accepted by the public, and Germany has developed a strong and enduring juridically based democracy.

Is Unified Germany a Nation-State?

Ernst B. Haas Dept. of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Working Paper 5.39

The history of Germany is consistent with the dictum that liberaldemocratic rationalization is unlikely to occur if full social mobilization and a strong sense of nationalism precedes the creation of a nation-state. Germany, between 1870 and 1933, was a poorly rationalized nation-state, containing a volatile mixture of liberal, traditional-authoritarian and integralist nationalist themes and institutions that prevented the definition of a national identity until the Nazis imposed one. The post-1949 Federal Republic, though successfully rationalized under liberal auspices and thus illustrating the fact that liberalism can be implanted into a society that is heavily traumatized, still displays a weak sense of national identity. However, the postwar Federal Republic also demonstrates Germany's ability to learn from failed policies and integrate its identity into the European one, a process which is hindered by the current struggle over multiculturalism with its emphasis on national exclusiveness and the loss of material security.

The Federal Republic as a Nation-State

Peter Krüger Dept. of Modern History, Universitat Marburg

Working Paper 5.40

The Federal Republic as a nation-state started its career in 1949. The Parliamentary Council of 1948-49 achieved the principal and durable change from the traditional German concept of a nationstate based on ethnicity and culture towards the Western concept of a liberal, democratic, pluralistic nation-state as a framework for an open society which developed due to the integrative power of the Grundgesetz and the Constitutional Court, supported by economic, social, and political trends which consolidated the special form of German democracy and foreign policy.

Four Decades of German Export Expansion - An Enduring Success Story?

Ludger Lindlar Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin Carl-Ludwig Holtferich,br>John F. Kennedy-lnstitut für Nordamerikastudien Freie Universitat Berlin

Working Paper 5.41

The paper surveys four decades of German export expansion, focusing on geography, international specialization, and the exchange rate regime. The most important findings are: (i) German unification and the transition of Eastern Europe to the market economy, as well as the greater trading potential due to lower transportation costs, fewer trade restrictions and similar incomes per head have made Germany, the center of the European economy. (ii) From the onset of the postwar boom, Germany was highly specialized in the export of machinery, transport equipment and chemicals; this pattern of specialization still prevails, but not because Germany is weak in high-technology products; measured by their contribution to GDP, Germany's high-technology industries are nearly as strong as those of the U.S. and Japan. (iii) Under the Bretton Woods system, international institutions shaped Germany's monetary regime; under the post-Bretton Woods system, the opposite is true. Under both exchange rate regimes, Germany has not been able to permanently improve its price competitiveness via lower domestic cost increases.

Immigration and Nationhood in the Federal Republic of Germany

Parliamentary Council of 1948-49 achieved the principal and d

Christhard Hoffman Dept. of History and Dept. of German University of California, Berkeley

Working Paper 5.42

Although the leading representatives in the Parliamentary Council of 1948-1949 were guided by the explicit intention of overcoming ethnic nationalism in the new Federal Republic, an ethnic-national definition of the German as a member of a community of descent nevertheless found its way into the Basic Law (Article 1 lG). In view of the division of Germany and the precarious situation of German minority groups in many East European countries, this definition was intended to ensure the "unity of the nation" and to guarantee persons of German descent a secure place of asylum. Although at the time, the preservation of jus sanguinis was not discussed with regard to the future immigration of non-Germans (such an eventuality was almost unimaginable in 1949), the legal institution of jus sanguinis was to be of decisive importance in the ensuing decades. The logic of the principle of descent permanently excluded immigrants of non-German origin from joining the community of citizens and thus cemented their status as "foreigners." In addition, during the public debate over immigration policy and "national identity" in the 1980's, conservative politicians could refer to the Basic Law to bolster their argument that the Federal Republic is not a "country of immigration", but rather an ethnically homogenous nation-state. Since unification, the political debate has centered on the question of how to reform the citizenship law. However, it has been particularly difficult to reach a solution acceptable to all sides since the issue involves the most fundamental questions of national self-definition (ethnically homogenous nation-state vs. multicultural repub Christhard Hoffmann Dept. of History and Dept. of German University of California, Berkeley

The End of Longing? Notes Towards a History of Postwar German National Longing

Charles Maier Dept. of History, Center for European Studies, Harvard University

Working Paper 5.43

The author investigates the question and prevalence of longing in Germany's postwar public culture. Maier assets that shortly after the end of World War II, West Germany longed for a unity that it had lost, which he compares to the longing before 1870 for a German state. By the 190s and 1970s however, this sort of public longing became sublimated by a tendency to Americanize West German society. West Germans became more concerned with consumption and prosperity than any sort of national longing for reunification. Longing did not disappear (either in the West or in the East for that matter) but went underground, perhaps to resurface after 1989, ironically when Germany was finally reunited. Maier suggests that longing may come to play a greater role in the next few decades, as Germany, having most of what it wants, comes to question the loss of Heimat. Ultimately he suggests that Germany will be a better neighbor if cultural longing can be finally put to rest.

State, Party-State, Anti-Party State: Political Parties and Political Culture in Germany

Michaela Richter Dept. of Political Science, College of Staten Island CUNY, New York

Working Paper 5.44

This paper treats critiques of the Federal Republic's party system and state as an especially important dimension of its political culture. Hostility to political parties had impeded and undermined German democracy in the past. During the occupation, the Allies, German of ficials, and public were at best ambivalent about party politics. The federal Republic's "democratic party state" resulted from deliberate measures calculated to overcome the legacy of an authoritarian anti-party culture. The Basic Laws recognition of political parties, further developed through interpretation by the Federal Constitutional Court created an unique form of democracy. Since 1949, the West German party state has achieved effectiveness and stability together with an unprecedented democratic political culture. Yet since the late 1970s, public opinion and voting studies have pointed to a growing popular disaffection with the main parties. These trends have been attributed to the party system and state. This paper treats such critiques as indicators of political culture. After comparing them to past attacks on political parties prior to 1949, the author concludes that criticisms of political parties in the Federal Republic are the result of commitment to, rather than repudiation of democratic government. Even after the strains of unification, no fundamental shift in German political culture has endangered the Federal Republic's party system and state.