German Politics Research Articles

Beyond “Lügenpresse”: How Politicians Criticize and Delegitimize the Media in Germany

Media criticism is a crucial part of meta-journalistic discourse, ensuring that journalists adhere to their democratic functions, such as informing citizens in an honest and complete manner. However, the profession increasingly faces hostile, nonevidence-based attacks from politicians that attempt to strategically fuel distrust among citizens and delegitimize opposed viewpoints. Despite this reality, we lack a systematic overview of the boundaries between constructive feedback and weaponized attacks in media criticism. To address this gap, we inductively analyzed how media criticism is represented within the social media discourse of ten German politicians from all major parties. Using a grounded theory approach, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of a subset of their tweets from 2015, 2017, and 2022 that contain media criticism ( N = 545), mapping the types and severity of the criticism, the construction of opposing narratives, and the explicitness of references to facticity over opinions. We identified four themes within media criticism discourse, ranging from misinformation attributions to severe accusations of the intentional distortion of reality through the media. Politicians (strategically) employ a wide range of media criticism and inaccuracy claims beyond judgments of facticity with differing degrees of severity for the profession. Based on our findings, we propose a typology of media criticism from political elites that adds nuance to our understanding regarding the boundaries between supportive and disruptive criticism for journalism.

Online Political Participation of Refugees in Germany: Analysis of a Survey in Bavaria

New media are an important resource for the political participation of marginalized groups. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about the factors that influence whether this opportunity is used. Influencing factors emerge from both the Civic Voluntarism Model and previous research on migrants’ political activity. Using data collected in 2019/2020 from 486 refugees living in Bavaria, we estimate linear probability models to investigate facilitating factors for the use of new media for political participation. The analysis shows that refugees in Germany who inform themselves about politics online tend to be predominantly male, higher educated, and politically involved. Language skills and the duration of stay also appear to be important. For the expression of one’s political opinion online, gender and language skills have an impact, but informing oneself about German politics, political interest, and offline political activity in Germany are the most relevant factors. This indicates that there is a close link between on- und offline activity. However, using the internet requires particular resources, so that people with lower language skills, for example, are particularly disadvantaged.

THE CONCEPT OF SECURITY IN GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY

The Ukrainian crisis escalation in February 2022 became an impetus for securitizing German foreign and domestic policies. An appeal to the notion of security is present in most significant discussions on the state development. Germany’s national security strategy securitized all major spheres of life in German society, making security a universal and comprehensive concept. This is also reflected in other guiding documents, such as the White Paper of the Bundeswehr, the Guiding Principles of Feminist Foreign Policy, the Cybersecurity Strategy. The «change of eras» concept announced by Olaf Scholz updated the security debate by addressing traditional military threats, launching a general revision of the security concept in German politics. Consequently, the boundaries of use of the security concept have expanded, making it commonly used by all participants of domestic political debates and, at the same time, significantly relativizing it. An illustrative example is the migration crisis, where both supporters and opponents of Berlin’s liberal migration policy appeal to German security interests. The further development of the security concept in German foreign policy will be determined by the development of the party-political system of the country, Berlin’s role in key international crises (Ukrainian conflict, Palestinian-Israeli conflict), and processes within German society.

WHAT ARE “TEMPORALITIES” IN HISTORY?

ABSTRACTThe question of which “temporalities” underpinned historical processes in the past has increasingly become the focus of historical interest in recent years. In his brilliantly written study of Prussian history, Time and Power: Visions of History in German Politics, from the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich, Christopher Clark attempts to answer this question by turning to four Prussian statesmen and politicians who each followed different temporalities in their private and public lives. The benefit of his study lies not least in a better understanding of the concept of “temporality” and its significance for historical processes.

Apuntes para una historia intelectual de la Fundación Friedrich Ebert en América Latina

The promotion of democracy was from its origins one of the banners of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), ideologically linked to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and which disembarked in Latin America in the 1960s. It is this transnationalization that we are interested in exploring from the perspective of intellectual history (Altamirano, 2005, Palti, 2004-2005), breaking with a unidirectional idea of transfers and circulations, in order to understand the exchange and connections between regions, ideas and people. The article first focuses on explaining the particularity of the German Political Foundations and the functioning of the FES in Latin America and then goes on to explore three intellectual projects of the Foundation, such as the Latin American Institutes for Social Science Research (ILDIS), the Center for Democratic Studies of Latin America (CEDAL) and the New Society Journal (NUSO). Based on the premise that ideas are important insofar as they conveyed meanings and representations in the region, this paper seeks to map the little known but strong presence of the FES in Latin America during the Cold War years. And how it became an important platform capable of connecting people, ideas and regions. In this framework, the FES, and this is our bet, can be thought of as an intellectual network that, while participating in and promoting debates on development, dependence, anti-imperialism, revolution and democracy, was building a space for indigenous social democracy.

Globalization, Competition and the Transformation of German Universities since the 1970s

Abstract Responding to the perceived challenges of globalization, German politicians have sought to transform German universities into competitive ‘entrepreneurial universities’. Based on archival material from six German universities, this article shows how reforms of university governance and new modes of funding have changed power relations within universities as well as within the German scientific community. Even though the breakthrough of ‘New Public Management’ must be situated in the 1990s, some causes of these transformations can be traced back to the 1970s, when the end of the postwar boom, educational expansion and discontent with the democratization of universities gave rise to new visions of the university’s role in society. Even though neoliberal ideas did play a part in the transformation of German universities, this process was more complex than the often-used label ‘neoliberal university’ suggests. International comparisons are applied to assess the scope of change and to highlight some of the peculiarities of the German developments.

Germany as a Nuclear Power?: How Nuclear Taboo Shaped the Discourse on West German Nuclearization

A disinformation campaign by the Adenauer administration in the 1950s has led the public to believe that West Germany has never had any intentions on gaining nuclear capabilities. This interpretation is not accurate, as modern research shows and opens a new area of research to be explored. Modern literature on the topic however has mostly been dealing with the problem of German nuclearization from an historical background. While there has been some research on the topic from an international relations perspective, such research has been conducted mostly from a realist perspective. Although the realist perspective has some merits, it is lacking in explanatory power when it comes to the words and behavior of German policy makers and politicians. Constructivist theory of the ‘nuclear taboo’ offers a good supplementary explanation for inner political dynamics during the 1950s and early 1960s. This research examines debates in the Bundestag related to the nuclearization of West Germany during those periods and takes a closer look at what and how congresspeople discussed West Germany going nuclear. It proves that nuclear taboo embraced by the congresspeople discouraged West Germany’s nuclearization.

Escalation of Anglo-German Relations Amidst Strengthening of ‘War Party’ in Germany during Crisis Period of 1908—1911

The subject of the study is Anglo-German relations during the crisis period of 1908-1911. The aim of the work is to examine the views and activities of German state and public figures who directly or indirectly influenced the overall background of Anglo-German relations in the context of escalating antagonism between the two states. This process was influenced by the so-called ‘war party’, to which a certain group of German politicians with pronounced nationalist-chauvinistic ideals belonged. The historical sources used in the article are analyzed from a personal approach and anthropology of international relations. Based on these sources, the previously poorly studied activities of the German elite, who acted in conjunction with Kaiser Wilhelm II and shaped Germany’s current foreign policy agenda in the pre-war period, are characterized. The author concludes that throughout the entire crisis period of Anglo-German relations from 1908 to 1911, neither the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor Chancellors B. Bülow and T. Bethmann-Hollweg were able to fully seize the initiative from the ‘war party’, which was shaping Wilhelm II’s policies. This became possible due to constitutional deformation and the celebrated ideas of a great national state in German society.

Метафора как продуктивное средство вербализации эмоций в политическом дискурсе Германии

The aim of the study is to determine the productivity of metaphor as a means of verbalizing emotions in the political discourse of Germany. The paper presents examples of the linguistic representation of emotional states in German-language political texts. Special attention is given to the analysis of metaphorical models used to verbalize emotions, reflected in the statements of German politicians, articles by political commentators and journalists addressing various issues in German political life, as well as the global community as a whole. The work briefly covers the existing definitions in modern science of the terms “political discourse”, “metaphor”, and “emotive”, which are fundamental to this study. The study is novel in that it is the first to identify and analyze the following metaphorical models used to represent various emotions in the political discourse of Germany: the image of “flowing emotions”, the image of emotions as fire, the image of the elements / destructive forces of nature, the image of emotions as a living being, the image of emotions as an illness/poison, the image of emotions as light. As a result, the study reveals that metaphor in Germany’s political discourse is a productive means of verbalizing emotional states, with negative emotions prevailing over positive ones.

Financial Constitution Issues in Development of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1948-1949

This article analyzes the key problems of the financial constitution in the development of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1948-1949, based on materials from the Constitutional Convention at Herrenchiemsee and the Parliamentary Council of West Germany. It emphasizes that the relevance of this issue was influenced by Germany’s historical development, which had a long-standing experience in both regional and imperial financial administration. This led to high significance of financial constitution issues in post-war West German politics. It is concluded that the main approaches to this problem were developed at the Herrenchiemsee Convention in October 1948, and the main content of the financial section of the Basic Law was formulated in the financial committee at the beginning of October 1948. A key role in developing the financial constitution was played by parliamentarian H. HöpkerAschoff. However, until May 1949, the parties could not reach a consensus on matters of financial administration system and financial equalization. This was significantly influenced by constant objections from the occupying administrations, the position of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), uncertainty in assessing financial conditions, and the Social Democrats’ consistent defense of broad financial powers for the federal center.

„Niekończąca się opowieść” – refleksje na temat uprawnień Europejskiego Banku Centralnego

Since the financial crisis of 2007–2008, we have been dealing with a special dialogue between the European and German courts at the level of the European Union. The subject of this dialogue is the decisions of the European Central Bank on the programme for the purchase of public sector assets on secondary markets. The ECB’s activity, as well as the involvement of the national central banks of the Eurosystem in the implementation of these decisions has been met with dissatisfaction by German politicians, culminating in the title judgment of the Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany. In the paper, the author analyses the judgment and passes critical commentary on the Weiss II judgment.

Liberation, Re-Education, Democratisation: The Politics of Gratitude in German-American Relations after 1945

The US-American presence in postwar Germany and its role in West Germany's re-education and democratisation have fuelled a discourse of gratitude that has lastingly shaped the transatlantic alliance. German politicians and other policy actors continue to rely on proclamations of ‘thankfulness’ as a means of what Todd Hall has termed ‘emotional diplomacy’. In the process, they affirm a collective memory of the postwar years that emphasises friendship and contains social conflicts, political tensions, and ambivalent affects. They draw on iconic tropes and powerful narratives – ranging from the GI handing out chewing gum to CARE packages and the ‘gift’ of democracy – which have cast German-American relations in terms of generosity, gift-giving, and gratitude. This article traces the roots of this discourse to (the popular memory of) the postwar moment and situates it vis-à-vis the multifaceted affective landscape of early postwar Germany with a specific focus on its gender logics and with an eye to its benefits and the risks it entails.

Regional Climate Protection in Times of Crisis? A comparative study of ten districts in four German Federal States

The amended German Climate Protection Act of 2021 is seen as an essential step towards fulfilment national climate protection targets and as a sign of mainstreaming climate protection in German politics. However, at the regional level, where many climate protection measures are implemented, there is a strong fragmentation in terms of priorities, policy instruments, actor constellations and resources. Moreover, the implementation of climate protection measures is under increasing pressure in the face of crises, such as the management of the Covid 19 pandemic or the energy crisis. We therefore ask: Under what conditions does regional climate protection succeed in times of crisis? Drawing on the regional governance concept and a comparative analysis of ten German counties, we explain differences in subnational climate governance. For our study, very different, but always rural districts were selected, as the importance of rural regions is often neglected in the study of local climate policy. Based on a qualitative document analysis in combination with observations and interviews with climate protection managers, we identify factors for the success of climate protection activities in times of multiple crises. We argue that structural factors are central to the success of regional climate protection measures in times of crisis, as they provide the framework conditions for the actions of actors.

Jews and German Politics: The Case of Habsburg Moravia, 1867–1918

AbstractIn the Austrian province of Moravia, Jews, most of whom spoke German, continued to participate in and support the German political community until the end of the Habsburg monarchy. Unlike in nearby Bohemia, German liberals in Moravia did not abandon the Jews as the franchise expanded and antisemitism grew. Indeed, the German Progressive Party continued to attract voters in the cities of the province and did not resort to antisemitism in order to do so. Although there were only a small number of Jews in the province—just over 40,000—they played a large role among the voters in the urban curia. After the Moravian Compromise of 1905, when German parties no longer had to compete with Czech parties, Jews often formed the majority of all voters for German parties in the small market towns of the largely Czech-speaking south and central part of the province. The perception of the need for Jewish support in elections created a situation in which the German liberals did not turn to antisemitic politics and the Jewish/German liberal alliance remained strong.

Bijes, solidarnost, kontraudar

The prevalence of politicians’ scandals on social media has become an integral part of contemporary political life, presenting a challenge to existing scandal research. The formerly passive audience is given new opportunities for participation that have not yet been comprehensively described either theoretically or empirically. This study contributes to filling this gap by developing a taxonomy to describe offensive and defensive forms of audience participation during scandals. I analyze a sample of 500 influential tweets, taken from a corpus of more than 55.000 tweets related to two scandalizations of German politicians. The proposed taxonomy is shown to be suitable for describing both offensive and defensive forms of audience participation in scandalizations on social media.

Energy, Ecology, and the Remaking of West German Politics in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract This article traces the transformation of West Germany's political system during the 1970s and 1980s, when an extra-parliamentary ecological opposition emerged to challenge the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD). Demographic, economic, and structural features in West Germany's political system created the space for this opposition, eventually leading to the formation of the Green Party. This article argues that ideas about energy were crucial to the movement's success, providing a focal point for reform that aimed to spur an energy transition. This movement of experts and activists pulled West Germany's political system in an ecological direction, forcing the SPD to become green itself. The transformation of West Germany's political system, in turn, set the Federal Republic on a different energy trajectory than the United States, Great Britain, and France.

Introduction

For many decades, stability and predictability were the defining features of German party competition. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, West German politics was dominated by the well-known two-and-a-half party system, which later expanded with the rise of the Greens in the 1980s and the addition of the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) after German reunification.1 Despite the expanding party system, party competition continued to be anchored by the CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) on the center-right and the SPD (Social Democratic Party) on the center-left, such that government coalitions at the federal and state level could typically be formed by two coalition partners, while ideologically coherent coalitions among parties on the left or the right were the norm.

Unbekannte Briefe von und an Ferdinand Christian Baur Mit einer Einleitung von Friedrich Wilhelm Graf

Abstract Ursula Streckert, a mother of five and a succesfull teacher, started to write a doctoral thesis after her retirement. It dealt with Ferdinand Christian Baur and German politics in the years before the bourgeois revolution of 1848, with a special focus on Wurttemberg. At her plea, I agreed to be her Doktorvater, all the more as I was highly impressed by her strong interest and drive to discover new sources. Indeed, thanks to her intensive research in many German and British archives, she succeeded in finding hitherto unknown letters of F. C. Baur, among them letters to his brother, academic scholars and academic colleagues of various German theological faculties. She investigated Baur’s activities in favour of the Philhellenic movement and his support for Polish revolutionaries fighting against Russian Czarism. Tragically, shortly before completing her doctoral thesis, Ursula Streckert succumbed to her fatal illness. The letters she discovered shed new light on Baur’s self understanding as a citical and, in the broadest sense, liberal theologian and on his commitment as a self-confident „Bürger“.

A Lost Game of Bank Bargains: West Germany and International Banking Regulation between Bretton Woods and Basel I (1972–1988)

Abstract Current theories of financial regulation suggest expanding rules-based formal state intervention to promote international banking stability. Such policy solutions should then be global in scope. This article instead argues that principles-based informal co- and self-regulation through domestic (gentlemen’s) agreements underpinned West German bank internationalisation until the 1980s. The analytic narrative approach allows the tracing of the social dynamics of the German politics of regulation, drawing on unused primary sources: Coalitions between the German regulating and regulated actors were bolstered by a liberal domestic framework and bespoke national policies. In contrast, regulatory harmonisation through international prudential standards came with high domestic adjustment costs for the German banking sector. Thus, domestic makeshift solutions to deal with and internalise cross-border financial risks proved most workable.

Longing for the Sonderweg

The highly controversial idea of Sonderweg, a special path to modernity, is frequently invoked to depict the history of Germany in the twentieth century. Initially claimed by nationalists as an exceptionalism proudly opposed to the development of both France and the United Kingdom, the German Sonderweg became a stigma after 1945, the mark of the wrong turn that had led to National Socialism. Beyond these debates, the thought remains that, under the shadow of this supposedly unique destiny, Germany was a volcano of aesthetic and intellectual creativity. This article analyzes the mental and cultural inversion produced by the end of the Cold War and the birth of a new “Berlin Republic.” From 1990 on, German politics and society tenaciously pursued a project of “normalcy” that consolidated both its democracy and its economy by establishing Berlin leadership in Europe. But this spectacular accomplishment also meant intellectual dryness and a memorial “wisdom” combined with a conservative “constitutional patriotism.” This inverted Faustian fate—conformist and mediocre prosperity instead of evil genius—is the transitory aftermath of a century of fire and blood.