Negotiating the East German Accession: Act II of German Unification

2015 ◽  
pp. 66-89
Author(s):  
Tereza Novotná
Keyword(s):  
German Unification ◽  
East German

Two Paradigmatic Views on Right-Wing Populism in East Germany

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-42
Author(s):  
Jonas Rädel
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Complex Phenomenon ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
Geographic Space ◽  
East German ◽  
Right Wing Populism

In German public perceptions, right-wing populism is cast as a specifically east German problem. This article critically examines how this assumption is located within the debate on German unity. In order to clarify the sometimes-confusing arguments on German unification, two paradigmatic perspectives can be identified: German unity can be approached from a perspective of modernization, or through the lens of postcolonial critique. When it comes to right-wing populism in eastern Germany, the modernization paradigm suffers from a lack of understanding. Hence, the arguments of the postcolonial perspective must be taken seriously, particularly as the postcolonial reading can grasp the complex phenomenon of right-wing populism in east Germany, and prevent the discursive and geographic space of the region from being conquered by right-wing political actors.

scholarly journals Resolving Rival Claims on East German Property upon German Unification

1991 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy Ames Jeffress
Keyword(s):  
German Unification ◽  
East German

scholarly journals Denying Difference to the Post-Socialist Other: Bernhard Heisig and the Changing Reception of an East German Artist

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
April A. Eisman
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Before And After ◽  
East German

This article traces the reception of East German artist Bernhard Heisig’s life and art—first in East Germany and then in the Federal Republic of Germany before and after the Wall. Drawing on post-colonial and post-socialist scholarship, it argues that Heisig’s reception exemplifies a western tendency to deny cultural and ideological difference in what the post-socialist scholar Piotr Piotrowski calls the “close Other.” This denial of difference to artists from the eastern bloc has shaped western understandings of Heisig’s life and art since reunification. Once perceived as an intellectually engaged, political artist, both in East and West Germany, after the fall of the Wall and German unification, Heisig was reinterpreted as a traumatized victim of two dictatorships, distorting not only our understanding of the artist and his work, but also of the nature of art and the role of the artist in East Germany.

German Unification, Democratization, and The Role of Social Movements: A Missed Opportunity?

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Rucht
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
German Unification ◽  
East German ◽  
German Revolution ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Missed Opportunity

Citizen movements were an important factor in triggering the peaceful East German revolution that abolished the communist regime and contributed to achievement of elementary civil rights that are taken for granted in Western democracies. However, the movements failed in their efforts to resist quick German unification via the largely uncontested transplantation of the West German institutional system to East Germany. This article analyzes why the movements could not achieve their aim of a new political order, in their view superior to Western type democracy—one that would guarantee radical democracy and extensive social rights for citizens. Drawing on three prominent perspectives in social movement research it is argued that both internal and external factors contributed to the failure of these movements. Although they might have avoided some minor tactical errors, they had few prospects for strongly influencing the course and result of German unification. Because this outcome was overdetermined, it is incorrect to suggest that the movements missed an opportunity to achieve their goal of radical democracy.

Reemerged Small-Business Capitalism: The East German Transition Reviewed

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 94-118
Author(s):  
Katharina Bluhm
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Planning System ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Top Down ◽  
German State ◽  
East German ◽  
Centralized Planning ◽  
Enterprise Transformation ◽  
Central Actor

Research on the enterprise transformation in East Germany after unification has focused mostly on the role of the Treuhandanstalt as the central actor in this process who widely determined its outcomes. David Stark and László Bruszt (1998) even suggest that this top-down model of transformation was rooted in the special institutional past of East German state socialism. They argue that the “Weberian home-land” was characterized by weak social networks among firms in comparison, for example, with firms in Hungary or Czechoslovakia, while the planning system and the industrial organization were extraordinarily centralized and hierarchical. Hence, social networks could easily be destroyed after German unification by market shock and by breaking up large enterprises into manageable pieces by the Treuhandanstalt. Moreover, the former, intact centralized planning system could easily be replaced by another centralized and cohesive administrative apparatus, now backed by the strong West German state.

Introduction: The East German Revolution, German Unification, and the Left

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Y. Michal Bodemann ◽  
Willfried Spohn
Keyword(s):  
German Unification ◽  
East German ◽  
German Revolution
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