Seven contributions combine an analysis of the structural foundations of executive leadership in Germany with a study of the six postwar Chancellors. They explain variations in performance between Chancellors who dominated and shaped the political landscape of the Federal Republic and those who merely trod across it, exploring the paradoxes of the office, and defining the scope of Chancellor leadership--its limits and its appropriateness for post-unification Germany. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
In the unification year of 1990, Helmut Kohl's stature appeared to invite comparison with Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic. This book examines the evolution of the modern German chancellorship against the background of social and political change.
In this volume, Helmut Kohl's leadership and legacy are assessed, and contributors analyse the chancellor's goals and governing style, including his part in promoting European integration; and his domestic political role vis a vis his own party, its main opponents and the public.
Economic and monetary union in the European Union represents a massive change for Europe and for the world. The Road to Maastricht identifies why the agreement was possible and how the agreement was made. The book examines the motives that inspired European political leaders, the strategies that they pursued, and the institutions that were used to achieve monetary union. Drawing on a wide range of sources and unprecedented research and interviews, the book combines careful political analysis with new information about the way in which European Monetary Union was negotiated. It delves into the complex forces at work in Europe, including the cross-national political interactions, to produce an authoritative account of the boldest and riskiest venture in the history of European integration.
During his political career, Helmut Kohl used his own life story to promote a normalization of German nationalism and to overcome the stigma of the Nazi period. In the context of the cold war and the memory of the fascist past, he was able to exploit the combination of his religious, generational, regional, and educational (he has a PhD in History) experiences by connecting nationalist ideas to particular biographical narratives. Kohl presented himself as the embodiment of “normality”: a de-radicalized German nationalism which was intended to eclipse any anti-Western and post-national peculiarities. This book takes a biographical approach to the study of nationalism by examining its manifestation in Helmut Kohl and the way he historicized Germany’s past.
The textbook introduces the self-understanding, institutional structure and practice of the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. The work provides a problem-oriented overview of the basic constitutional and foreign policy decisions that have constituted German democracy; the political field of forces formed by interest groups, citizens' initiatives, parties and mass media; the political institutions at the federal, state and local levels; the social reach and administrative enforcement of political decisions; the political culture including the structure of the political ruling class. The new edition also addresses, among other things, the consequences of the Corona crisis for the political system, the changing party system and the crisis of the EU after the 2021 federal election.
This book explores the most important components and contributing factors to the European integration process during the 1950s. It seeks to combine comparative politics and political history to examine core themes such as war experience, national security, military security, economic security, societal security, and research and education in three major European countries, i.e. France, Germany, and Britain. It analyses the references to the ensuing European integration process in national parliamentary debates, analyzing which national needs were thought European integration could cater to, but also which national positions were seen as being compromised by a closer European commitment. The development of a national position on European integration and in turn the evolution of European concepts are considered by using discourse theory on parliamentary debates in France, Germany, and Britain. Parliamentary discourses are shown to be an ideal source for analyzing grand themes, such as European integration, because they cover all fundamental ideas; they have to be public and open-ended deliberations which in turn determined the position of each country towards European integration. The great variety of positions reflected in the parliamentary discourse, in particular those which did not prevail and which did not find their way into the commonly accepted historical storyline of European integration, provide a greater comprehensiveness and a better understanding of the history of the European integration process.
Thomas Hörber analyses the building process of European integration. He shows the parliamentary discourses of France, Germany and Britain to be representative of the national position of these states towards the developing concept of 'Europe'. He covers all key events and developments of the time which had an impact on the European integration process and provides an explanation for the convergence of national discourses towards a common Europe. This development was by no means a given and the analysis of parliamentary debates shows for the first time how vigorous the debates were on European integration in the 1950s, and how, despite setbacks (notably the failure of the European Defence Community), the discussion went in favour of integration.
During the Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), a divided nation on the front-line of the East-West confrontation, came down with pneumonia every time the superpowers sneezed. Due to the East-West confrontation splitting Germany in two, the Cold War remained irrevocably linked to the question of German unity. In The Politics of Foreign Policy in Post-War Germany , David Patton develops the links between Cold War international pressures, and German domestic coalitions. The book examines a politics in uncertain times, with three major shifts in Cold War relations disrupting politics-as-usual in the Federal Republic. In the early 1950s, external pressures led to a wrenching internal debate over rearmament. Twenty years later, the thaw in Cold War tensions set the stage for a fierce domestic showdown over détente with Eastern Europe. In the early 1990s, Chancellor Helmut Kohl took full advantage of the end of the Cold War to implement his controversial unification policy. At each juncture, the Federal Republic experienced intense debates over national unity, the increased stature of the chancellor in the policy-making process, the emergence of new domestic alliances and a sudden foreign policy reversal. Patton's examination of these three periods reveals how the Federal Republic has changed, yet stayed the same, in the post-war era.
