German Neoconservatism and the History of the Bonn Republic, 1968 to 1985

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Jerry Z. Muller

German neoconservatism and its role in the political culture of the Federal Republic is largely uncharted scholarly territory. Especially for English-language historians and political scientists, its place on the historical map is marked, “Here lie monsters.” This article is intended not as a definitive treatment, but as a sketch suggesting the contours of the subject. It has become commonplace to regard 1968 as a pivotal year in the history of the Bundesrepublik. This article suggests that this may be true in a broader sense than is usually meant: that the significance of 1968 derives not only from the 68ers and their transformation of the political culture of the left, but also from the neoconservative reaction to the 68ers, which helped recast the political culture of the non-left. The article begins by exploring some of the difficulties in getting a conceptual and definitional handle on German neoconservatism. It then proceeds to examine in some depth the career and ideas of one of the most prominent German neoconservatives, Hermann Lübbe. Then the article discusses several key issues, events, and processes that defined neoconservatism, before touching briefly on the reasons for its dissolution as a coherent phenomenon and reflecting on its place in the history of the Bundesrepublik.

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdullah Lux

Excerpted from the manuscript of a forthcoming book project, this article provides essential English-language source material on Ḥusayn Badr al-Dīn al-Ḥūthī and an alternative framework to that of the mainstream media for exploring what are likely the genuine causes and nature of the wars against Ṣaʿdah, Yemen, undertaken with backing and technical assistance from the United States, if not direct complicity in the name of then President George W. Bush's administration's ‘war on terror’. In addition to shedding light on the voluminous Malāzim of Ḥusayn Badr al-Dīn and providing analysis of its various influences including Khomeini and Lebanon's Ḥizb Allāh, while at the same time demonstrating a lack of evidence for direct support by either Ḥizb Allāh or Iran, the article examines the distinct Jārūdī Zaydī nature of the only contemporary Zaydī political discourse and formulation of its kind, which is distinct from Twelver Shīʿism and antithetical to the ‘wilāyat al-faqīh’ in Iran. The article examines the origins of the Lebanese group known as al-Shabāb al-Muʾmin that would later evolve into Ḥizb Allāh and the history of Yemen's Tanẓīm al-Shabāb al-Muʾmin from which al-Ḥūthī would draw his core group of supporters, and it aims to decipher the nature of the relation between al-Ḥūthī's thought and Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran as well as its grounding in the Jārūdī Zaydī sect and the Zaydīyah at large. The article includes excerpts from an interview with Ayatollah Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallah on the subject, new statements from the Office of ʿAbd al-Mālik al-Ḥūthī in Ṣaʿdah, and in-depth analysis of the Malāzim with exhaustive citations in translation – all never before published – all of which provide essential reading for understanding the objective historical conditions as well as the political, cultural, tribal, ideological, and sectarian dimensions of the wars against Ṣaʿdah.


Author(s):  
Ross McKibbin

This book is an examination of Britain as a democratic society; what it means to describe it as such; and how we can attempt such an examination. The book does this via a number of ‘case-studies’ which approach the subject in different ways: J.M. Keynes and his analysis of British social structures; the political career of Harold Nicolson and his understanding of democratic politics; the novels of A.J. Cronin, especially The Citadel, and what they tell us about the definition of democracy in the interwar years. The book also investigates the evolution of the British party political system until the present day and attempts to suggest why it has become so apparently unstable. There are also two chapters on sport as representative of the British social system as a whole as well as the ways in which the British influenced the sporting systems of other countries. The book has a marked comparative theme, including one chapter which compares British and Australian political cultures and which shows British democracy in a somewhat different light from the one usually shone on it. The concluding chapter brings together the overall argument.


1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. McIlwain

At the meeting of the Political Science Association last year, in the general discussion, on the subject of the recall, I was surprised and I must admit, a little shocked to hear our recall of judges compared to the English removal of judges on address of the houses of parliament.If we must compare unlike things, rather than place the recall beside the theory or the practice of the joint address, I should even prefer to compare it to a bill of attainder.In history, theory and practice the recall as we have it and the English removal by joint address have hardly anything in common, save the same general object.Though I may not (as I do not) believe in the recall of judges, this paper concerns itself not at all with that opinion, but only with the history and nature of the tenure of English judges, particularly as affected by the possibility of removal on address. I believe a study of that history will show that any attempt to force the address into a close resemblance to the recall, whether for the purpose of furthering or of discrediting the latter, is utterly misleading.In the history of the tenure of English judges the act of 12 and 13 William III, subsequently known as the Act of Settlement, is the greatest landmark. The history of the tenure naturally divides into two parts at the year 1711. In dealing with both parts, for the sake of brevity, I shall confine myself strictly to the judges who compose what since 1873 has been known as the supreme court of judicature.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-352
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY SCOTT BROWN

‘In Search of Space’ explores the history of Krautrock, a futuristic musical genre that began in Germany in the late 1960s and flowered in the 1970s. Not usually explicitly political, Krautrock bore the unmistakable imprint of the revolt of 1968. Groups arose out of the same milieux and shared many of the same concerns as anti-authoritarian radicals. Their rebellion expressed, in an artistic way, key themes of the broader countercultural moment of which they were a part. A central theme, the article argues, was escape – escape from the situation of Germany in the 1960s in general, and from the specific conditions of the anti-authoritarian revolt in the Federal Republic in the wake of 1968. Mapping Krautrock's relationship to key locations and routes (both real and imaginary), the article situates Krautrock in relationship to the political and cultural upheavals of its historical context.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Kazancev

The monograph is devoted to the history of medieval Russian and Byzantine teachings about the power of the sovereign and the reflection of these doctrinal ideas in the practice of public administration of the two peoples. The phenomena of the power of the sovereigns of the Byzantine Empire, Ancient Russia and the Moscow state are investigated and compared, and an attempt is made to answer the question of what is common and different in the foundations of the organization of power of these three states. The Byzantine influence on the political culture of Russia is still a subject of controversy, and therefore it is especially important to analyze the achievements of historical and legal science in this area for a reasoned discussion. For students and teachers, as well as anyone interested in national and world history.


2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 550-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assef Ashraf

AbstractThis article uses gift-giving practices in early nineteenth-century Iran as a window onto statecraft, governance, and center-periphery relations in the early Qajar state (1785–1925). It first demonstrates that gifts have a long history in the administrative and political history of Iran, the Persianate world, and broader Eurasia, before highlighting specific features found in Iran. The article argues that the pīshkish, a tributary gift-giving ceremony, constituted a central role in the political culture and economy of Qajar Iran, and was part of the process of presenting Qajar rule as a continuation of previous Iranian royal dynasties. Nevertheless, pīshkish ceremonies also illustrated the challenges Qajar rulers faced in exerting power in the provinces and winning the loyalty of provincial elites. Qajar statesmen viewed gifts and bribes, at least at a discursive level, in different terms, with the former clearly understood as an acceptable practice. Gifts and honors, like the khil‘at, presented to society were part of Qajar rulers' strategy of presenting themselves as just and legitimate. Finally, the article considers the use of gifts to influence diplomacy and ease relations between Iranians and foreign envoys, as well as the ways in which an inadequate gift could cause offense.


1998 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Lewisohn

Following the political upheavals of 1978, the history and development of Shiite religious thought in modern-day Persia has been the subject of detailed scholarly studies, but the modern development of Sufism—the mystical tradition that lies at the heart of traditional Persian culture, literature and philosophy, which is, from the cultural and literary point of view at least, the most fascinating aspect of the Perso-Islamic religious tradition—remains almost completely uncharted. In contrast to the classical and medieval periods of Persian Sufism which have undergone much scholarly investigation in recent years, the study of the modern period of Iranian tasawwuf, though far better known and documented, has been seriously neglected by scholars.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-150
Author(s):  
Matthew Leigh

This paper studies examples of how exponents of Roman declamation could insert into arguments on the trivial, even fantastic, cases known as controuersiae statements of striking relevance to the political culture of the triumviral and early imperial period. This is particularly apparent in the Controuersiae of Seneca the Elder but some traces remain in the Minor Declamations attributed to Quintilian. The boundaries separating Rome itself from the declamatory city referred to by modern scholars as Sophistopolis are significantly blurred even in those instances where the exercise does not turn on a specific event from Roman history, and there is much to be gained from how the declaimers deploy Roman historical examples. Some of the most sophisticated instances of mediated political comment exploit the employment of universalizing sententiae, which have considerable bite when they are related to contemporary Roman discourse and experience. The declamation schools are a forum for thinking through the implications of the transformation of the Roman state and deserve a place within any history of Roman political thought.


Author(s):  
Michael Sonenscher

This chapter shows how the moral and social dimensions of the subject of army reform grew out of the range of questions that it generated about property and inheritance, as against merit and distinction, in determining both the composition of the French nobility and its relationship to the French royal government. Getting the peacocks to pay raised a number of political dilemmas, however. These, in turn, helped to rule out the old vision of a powerful reforming monarch as the solution to absolute government's financial problems. The political history of the French Revolution thus began with the unavailability of this alternative. Irrespective of the damage done by the argument over military reform to any plausible prospect of relying on Louis XVI to be a patriot king, the model itself pulled strongly against both the realities of modern war finance and the more urgent political need to consolidate the royal debt.


Author(s):  
Stephen Lovell

The introduction considers the place of the spoken word in Russian history, presenting a pre-history of rhetoric and oratory in Russia before the 1860s. Examples are drawn from sermons, literature, theatre, and the universities, as well as from the political practice of Russia’s rulers. The introduction goes on to explain the significance of public speaking in Russia’s ‘stenographic age’, highlighting the challenges of modern mass politics and communications. It further offers comparisons between Russian political culture and the political culture of Britain, Germany, and the United States, paying particular attention to the place of oratory in the political imagination. It concludes by outlining the structure and rationale of the book.


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