The Puzzle of Persistence and Power: Explaining Germany’s Normative Foreign Policy

Abstract

Germany is as powerful today as it was 100 years ago and has again stepped onto the global stage as a ‘Great Power’. The Germany of today, however, is quite unlike most great powers in historical memory. Twenty-five years after unification and the achievement of full sovereignty, Germany is using its growing material power to actively and effectively pursue the normative principles of anti-militarism and multilateralism born and nurtured under weakness and occupation after devastating loss in World War II. But as the guiding norms of foreign and security policy, they did not change or disappear but were strengthened with the achievement of sovereignty and unity after 1989. What changed was Germany’s power to actively pursue a foreign policy based on these norms. The article argues that external factors transformed Germany’s status and power position in Europe and the world, allowing it to act alone and build up its military power. But internal factors – entrenched norms, a foreign policy identity built on those norms – constrained and still constrains its willingness and the ability of successive post-unification governments to act like the ‘great power’ that it had become.