Communists and Democrats: Democratic Attitudes in the Two Germanies

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Research Unit ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Cultural Socialization ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Cultural Inheritance ◽  
The West ◽  
Democratic Attitudes ◽  
Democratic Norms

German unification has revived earlier scholarly debates about the nature of the German political culture and the ability of the nation to rise above its cultural heritage – now focused on the cultural inheritance from the German Democratic Republic. This article examines popular support for democratic attitudes as a prerequisite for successful political unification and the development of democracy in a unified Germany. Our evidence focuses on a study of democratic attitudes conducted in West Germany and East Germany by the Mannheim Research Unit for Societal Development in early 1990, with supplemental data from more recent surveys. We find that East Germans voice support for democratic attitudes that rivals or excels the expression of democratic norms in the West. The correlates of these opinions suggest that democratic norms in the East developed from an on-going process of counter-cultural socialization and from judgements about the relative economic strength of the Federal Republic.

scholarly journals Abstieg West durch Aufbau Ost?

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (135) ◽  
pp. 321-329
Author(s):  
Ulrich Busch
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Unification ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
The Eu

14 years after the German unification East Germany is one of the largest European problem areas. Loss of population, economic stagnation and the dependence on transfers from the West determine the situation. With the expansion of the EU, East Germany can become the German mezzogiorno. In this situation a group of experts demands radical measures form the federal government. But these measures will worsen the living conditions in East Germany, which are already very different to those in West Germany.

Transit to East Germany: The Distribution and Reception of Once Upon a Time in the West in the German Democratic Republic

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Stott
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Business Professionals ◽  
The West ◽  
Nation States

This chapter examines the relocation, transition, and appropriation of the Spaghetti Western in a hitherto under-researched context: the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), prior to its unification with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in 1990. It explores the selection, distribution and reception of Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West, Sergio Leone, 1968) in the German Democratic Republic as a case study of how international cultural transfer causes objects of cultural production to be repositioned as they enter a new reception context. It also examines the ideological, economic, and sociological concerns underpinning the decisions of those who facilitated the movement of film across the political, cultural, and linguistic boundaries of nation states. In East Germany, the facilitators involved in the selection, censorship, dubbing, and promotion of films were mainly government administrators rather than film business professionals, because film was a state-controlled industry. The chapter focuses on the ‘official’ reception of the film on the basis of available censorship protocols and government policy papers, as well as print media sources.

Radicals and the State

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREGG O. KVISTAD
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
The State ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
German State ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
The One ◽  
State Employee ◽  
Political Battle

This article argues that ideas of the state are crucial for understanding contemporary politics in so-called “state-societies” like West Germany. It argues that the recent protracted and divisive political battle over state employee personnel policy in the Federal Republic needs to be understood as a conflict involving the power of two nineteenthcentury ideas of the German state, on the one hand, and the general modernization of the West German state and transformation of West German elite and mass political culture, on the other.

The GDR, Luther, and the German Question

1986 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
West Germany ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
German Question ◽  
East German ◽  
Democratic Revolution ◽  
Domestic Support ◽  
Socialist Unity

The East German government's commemoration in 1983 of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth exemplifies its continuing effort to broaden domestic support by arguing over a thirty-year period that the regime's values are deeply rooted in German civilization. The representation of Luther in the German Democratic Republic has evolved from caricature to sophisticated portraiture. Fundamental to this reinterpretation has been the association of Luther with the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a process which the ruling Socialist Unity party claims to have completed in the course of establishing the GDR. Continuing interaction between East and West Germany has complicated the GDR's effort to utilize historical symbols in developing a unified political culture.

scholarly journals The Berlin Wall after Fifty Years: Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hope M. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
East And West ◽  
East West

Fifty years ago on 13 August 1961, the East Germans sealed the east-westborder in Berlin, beginning to build what would become known as theBerlin Wall. Located 110 miles/177 kilometers from the border with WestGermany and deep inside of East Germany, West Berlin had remained the“last loophole” for East Germans to escape from the communist GermanDemocratic Republic (GDR) to the western Federal Republic of Germany(FRG, West Germany). West Berlin was an island of capitalism and democracywithin the GDR, and it enticed increasing numbers of dissatisfied EastGermans to flee to the West. This was particularly the case after the borderbetween the GDR and FRG was closed in 1952, leaving Berlin as the onlyplace in Germany where people could move freely between east and west.By the summer of 1961, over 1,000 East Germans were fleeing westwardsevery day, threatening to bring down the GDR. To put a stop to this, EastGermany’s leaders, with backing from their Soviet ally, slammed shut this“escape hatch.”

Revolutionary Constitutional Lawmaking in Germany—Rediscovering the German 1989 Revolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 579-626
Author(s):  
Stephan Jaggi
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
German Unification ◽  
The West ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
German States ◽  
East German ◽  
German Constitutional Law

AbstractToday, the 1989 Revolution in East Germany is recognized and celebrated as the event that abolished the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and brought about German unification. What is mostly overlooked, however, is that these are not the Revolution's only and, from the perspective of constitutional law, not even its most important achievements. More important with respect to understanding constitutional lawmaking in Germany is that the 1989 Revolution did not lead to an unconditional adoption of West German constitutional law in the new East German states. Instead, the Revolution had its own constitutional agenda, which went beyond the West German Basic Law and was transferred to unified Germany where it then needed to be integrated into the existing West German constitutional order. The Article reinterprets the 1989 Revolution and shows how a revolutionary popular movement in the GDR developed its own constitutional agenda, which first found legal manifestation in GDR legislation, and then was transferred to unified Germany through the Unification Treaty and the new state constitutions.

scholarly journals Przyrodnie siostry – sytuacja kobiet z byłej RFN i NRD 30 lat po zjednoczeniu Niemiec

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-179
Author(s):  
Joanna Trajman
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
The West

The goal of this article is to present the transition in the situation of women in the former West Germany and East Germany as a consequence of German reunification. Starting with an outline of the legal framework defining gender equality, as well as the actual circumstances of females in society as part of a family and on the labour market in both German countries, the situation of women in the united country is analysed within the context of their professional activity, remuneration and pension amounts and promotion prospects as well as the ability to combine their professional and family lives. I try to answer whether women in the former East Germany became underprivileged due to the German reunification process and whether the situation of the West German women changed as a result of certain equality incentives which could be considered the heritage of the German Democratic Republic.

The Foreign Policy of the German Sudeten Council and Hans-Christoph Seebohm, 1956–1964

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilad Margalit
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Support ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
German Politics ◽  
The Government

Recent historical studies on the organizations of German expellees and their influence on West German political culture highlight the insincere attitude and deception by the whole West German political establishment toward the expellee politicians and activists and their cause. One study in this field is Matthias Stickler's important book “Ostdeutsch heißt Gesamtdeutsch,” and a more recent one by Manfred Kittel, Vertreibung der Vertriebenen?, takes Stickler's thesis even further. It creates the impression that the expellee organizations, highly dependent on the government for financial and political support, had no option in this matter and were even helpless in that they had to accept the noncommittal rhetoric and the West German government's unwillingness to obligate West Germany for their cause. In this article, I probe this portrayal of the expellee politicians and activists as objects rather than subjects of German politics by inquiring into the political and public relations activities of the German Sudeten Council (Sudetendeutscher Rat) in the field of foreign policy during and around the tenure of Hans-Christoph Seebohm as the leader (Sprecher) of the German Sudeten Expellee Homeland Society (Landsmannschaft) (1959–1967). The Sudeten Council is a non-party association; one half of its members are elected by the federal assembly of the German Sudeten Landsmannschaft and the other half by the political parties of the Bundestag. As well as being a politician of the expellee organization, Hans-Christoph Seebohm pursued the longest political career in the German federal cabinet—seventeen years. He served as Minister of Transportation and Mail of the Federal Republic from 1949 to 1966 under Chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. To date, no monographic work has been written about Seebohm.

Political Culture and Israeli Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gal Ariely
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
The Political ◽  
System Support ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Principal Factors ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Broad Overview ◽  
Cross National

This chapter provides a broad overview of the political culture in Israel. It begins by discussing whether a single Israeli political culture can indeed be identified. It then surveys the principal factors that shape political culture and the key changes from the early days of nation-building attempts to Israel’s current, more multicultural character. Making use of a cultural-value map, the chapter then addresses the question of whether Israel’s political culture is indeed “Western” and compares the principal Israeli political orientations with those of other societies. Finally, it analyzes aspects of system support and democratic norms via the use of national and cross-national survey data. The analysis presented concludes that Israeli political culture is dominated by countervailing forces that create a combination of assertive and allegiant forms of citizenship.

scholarly journals Music for International Solidarity: Performances of Race and Otherness in the German Democratic Republic

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139
Author(s):  
ELAINE KELLY
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
West Germany ◽  
International Solidarity

AbstractCentral to the official identity of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was the state's positioning of itself as the antifascist and anti-colonial other to West Germany. This claim was supported by the GDR's extensive programme of international solidarity, which was targeted at causes such as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. A paradox existed, however, between the vision of a universal proletariat that underpinned the discourse of solidarity and the decidedly more exclusive construct of socialist identity that was fostered in the GDR itself. In this article, I explore some of the processes of othering that were embedded in solidarity narratives by focusing on two quite contrasting musical outputs that were produced in the name of solidarity: the LP Kämpfendes Vietnam, which was released on the Amiga record label in 1967, and the Deutsche Staatsoper's 1973 production of Ernst Hermann Meyer's anti-apartheid opera, Reiter der Nacht.

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