German Politics Research Articles

German political foundations’ democracy promotion in autocratizing Tanzania: opening spaces for civil society support and transnational learning

ABSTRACT This article presents an empirically grounded argument on how democracy promoters adapt to the target country's autocratization, and whether these adaptations actually lead to a taming of democracy promotion. Focusing on Tanzania under President Magufuli (2015–2021), a case of deepening autocracy, it examines the work of the German Political Foundations (GPFs). According to existing literature, the GPFs represent a particularly interesting case of democracy promoters due to their long-term presence in more than 120 countries, their quasi-NGO status, and their large transnational network. Moreover, despite the recent autocratization of the GPFs’ target countries, the GPFs had to cease their work in only very few cases. 23 expert interviews were analysed through a deductive-inductive qualitative content analysis, which distinguished three levels of adaptation: (1) the general approach (direct/indirect), (2) the instruments used (categories of democracy assistance by Bush, 2015), and (3) the underlying rationale. In total, six adaptation strategies with a particular emphasis on indirect, regime-compatible democracy promotion were identified, aiming to support democratic transformation long-term by empowering civil society and enabling exchange. Since this is in line with the GPFs’ general rationale of fostering democratic change through learning and socialization, I conclude therefore that the GPFs were not “tamed.”

Integration in the Host Country, Mean Political Interest and Focus Shift towards Host Country Politics: Patterns of Transnational Political Interest among Germans from Turkey

Transnational political interest is the sustained attention to politics in at least two polities. Why do some immigrant-origin citizens show high levels of political interest in both their host countries and their familial countries of origin, some none, and others favour one over the other? With the 2017 Immigrant German Election Study, we describe the diverse patterns of transnational political interest among Germans from Turkey and their children, one of the largest immigrant-origin communities. We explicitly focus on the effects of three dimensions of integration and reveal that social integration has, by far, the strongest association with mean political interest. In addition, all dimensions of integration tilt the focus of political interest in favour of German politics, effects that are mediated by the individual identification with Germany and Turkey. Integration thus seems to activate immigrant-origin citizens into politics in general but tilts their transnational political interest towards host country politics.

A matter of state: The politics of German anti-anti-Semitism

A matter of state: The politics of German anti-anti-Semitism

Articulating a Delicate Balancing Act: Identity and Ontological Insecurity in Germany’s Narrative Responses to Israel 1993–2023

ABSTRACT This article analyses how German politicians have responded, through the use of political narratives, to notable developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over a period of 30 years. Conceptually engaging with the literature on identity, ontological (in)security, and narratives, we explore how narratives have been utilised in Germany to mitigate situations which cause normative dissonance, thereby challenging the stability of Germany’s autobiographical narrative, such as Israeli military campaigns or tensions between Israel and Palestine. In the first systematic narrative analysis on this topic, we look at 267 German parliamentary speeches between 1993 and 2023. The article shows how German politicians and political parties developed specific coping strategies to uphold solidarity with Israel, while overall ensuring a stable and coherent narrative of Germany’s national identity. We conceptualise Germany's narrative engagement as the articulation of a delicate ‘balancing act’. Specifically, politicians navigate competing perceived responsibilities and commitments through prioritisation and narrative adaptation.

The Division Wall in Mind: An Analysis of the Continuous East-West Divide in Germany after Reunification

Abstract: German elections have attracted the attention of stakeholders from all over the world over the past few decades. This article will focus on the important role played by the Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) party in the German election process. German Alternative fr Deutschlands support in national polls, as well as its success in regional elections, has posed an alarming threat for many Germans. Ruling parties and foreign countries have unanimously expressed their concern over this mass-based success, labeling it as the turning point of German politics. The paper will attribute the contrasting support rates in the East and West Germany to the lasting regional divide in economy, society and culture, and reveal the historical reasons behind respectively. There is no coincidence that the Right ideology is again gaining grounds in German politics, since the division period and reunification policies have both left irreversible impacts on the unified country, making voters vulnerable to AfD promises.

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.

Boris Tsonev’s Contribution to Bulgaria’s Participation in the 1936 Olympic Games

A significant influence on the development and enrichment of the arts competitions for the 1936 Olympic Games was the presence of German political propaganda, which aimed to manifest the power and strength of the German political, economic and socio-cultural model of government. This is one of the reasons for including dance competitions in the official cultural program, even though they are not approved by the International Olympic Committee. Undoubtedly, this fact later had its influence on a large part of the Bulgarian and foreign scientific publications, which relied on official IOC sources, rejecting German publications. The aim of the study is to present new information about the historical participation of Bulgaria and the dance troupe „Bulgarian Kitka“ and the choreographer Boris Tsonev in the first dance competitions in the arts held at the XI Olympic Games in Berlin, in which our country won the Olympic gold medal. Several areas of information gathering are covered: a study of foreign literature, a review of all publications by Bulgarian researchers in the field of the Olympic movement in Bulgaria that present information on the subject. In terms of methodology, all the information found in scientific and popular sources was systematized and processed based on the biographical method, content analysis, comparative and critical analysis. This publication presents newly discovered information, in Bulgarian and foreign periodical publications, which enable an attempt to reconstruct the events in order to clarify the participation of Boris Tsonev and the ensemble „Bulgarian Kitka“ in these competitions. These discoveries will shed light on the history of the Olympic movement in Bulgaria and form a new perspective in the discussions on the subject discussed by other contemporary researchers of the Olympic movement.

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.

“Germany and the Balkan Feud”: The Russian Press Assessment of German Policy During the Two Balkan Wars of 1912–1913

By analysing leading Russian newspapers on the eve of the Great War, the author illustrates the perception of German policy by Russian public opinion during the two Balkan wars of 1912–1913. He concludes that during the ten months of the Balkan crisis, the attitude of the Russian press towards Germany underwent a significant transformation. In the first two months of the Balkan War (October and November 1912), when Berlin was not openly declaring its support for Austrian claims, one could find favourable comments on German policy in Russian newspapers. The attitude of the Russian press to Germany shifted in a negative direction under the influence of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg’s speech in the Reichstag on 2 December 1912, when for the first time since the beginning of the Balkan War Berlin publicly declared its readiness to back its Austrian ally’s claims with arms in hand. Russian society experienced even greater disappointment in German politics after the start of the London Meeting of Ambassadors, at which the German representative supported the proposals of the Austrian side, and after a new speech by Bethmann-Hollweg in the German parliament on April 7, 1913, when the Reich Chancellor declared “racial opposites” between the Slavic and German peoples and laid full responsibility for maintaining a tense the situation in Europe affects the pan-Slavic circles of Russia. These two speeches by the head of the German government and Berlin’s support for Austrian claims at the London Conference were negatively perceived by the overwhelming majority of the Russian press. At the same time, the disagreements between Germany and Austria-Hungary that emerged during the Bucharest Peace Conference and immediately after it gave the Russian press reason to declare a serious crisis of the Triple Alliance. The article concludes that there was a significant increase in anti-German sentiment in Russia under the influence of German behavior during the Balkan crisis of 1912–1913. Thus, the two Balkan Wars became an important milestone not only in the history of international relations at the beginning of the 20th century, but also in the propaganda preparations for the First World War.

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.