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Begin New Search Political Geography Germany Publishing Institution Institute of European Studies

1. Welfare State Integration of Immigrants: the Case of Germany

Author:
Friedrich Heckmann
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Why does Germany– in contrast to the US– have a system of integration policies? I begin with the hypothesis that societies have certain basic ways of securing general macro – social, societal integration and of tackling social problems and tensions. These modes of dealing with tensions and social problems derive from fundamental principles and values of the social order. In the tradition of the German welfare state philosophy starting with Bismarck, the contemporary Soziale Marktwirtschaft is a system of economic, social and political relations that is a basic element of the social order in Germany: an interventionist welfare state to reduce tensions and to help provide social security, social justice and improve opportunities for disadvantaged groups and in general to prevent social exclusion.
Topic:
Poverty, Immigration, and Governance
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Germany

2. Making and Unmaking Money: Economic Planning and the Collapse of East Germany

Author:
Jonathan R. Zatlin
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper locates the collapse of East German communism in Marxist- Leninist monetary theory. By exploring the economic and cultural functions of money in East Germany, it argues that the communist party failed to reconcile its ideological aspirations - a society free of the social alienation represented by money and merchandise - with the practical exigencies of governing an industrial society by force. Using representative examples of market failure in production and consumption, the paper shows how the party's deep-seated hostility to money led to economic inefficiency and waste. Under Honecker, the party sought to improve living standards by trading political liberalization for West German money. Over time, however, this policy devalued the meaning of socialism by undermining the actual currency, facilitating the communist collapse and overdetermining the pace and mode of German unification.
Topic:
Communism and Economics
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, Germany, and West Germany

3. How Many Third Ways? Comparing the British, French and German Left in Government

Author:
Eckhard Schröter
Publication Date:
02-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
In the late 1990s, the European Left seemed to be once more in the ascendancy with Social Democratic-led governments in power in the majority of EU countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. At the same time, the debate about the socalled 'Third Way' — as an icon of the apparent electoral revitalization of European Social Democracy — rose to become the most important reform discourse in the European party landscape.
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, France, and Germany

4. The Politics of Restitution for Nazi Victims in Germany West and East (1945 - 2000)

Author:
Constantin Goschler
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
On first sight, a comparison between restitution for Nazi victims in Germany West and East does not seem to leave ample space for interpretation: While the Federal Republic at least in principle accepted their obligation to compensate former Nazi victims and paid huge amounts for that purpose over the last 50 years, the GDR only offered elaborated social security for the tiny faction of Nazi victims who decided to live in the GDR after 1949. As a consequence, while restitution in the West has been a predominantly Jewish affair, restitution in the East was chiefly a communist matter. However, in my talk I will not focus on a comparison of material payments. Rather, I am interested in the different structure of the answers of two German societies to the same problem: the persecution and killing of millions of people by the Nazi regime. This implies three sets of questions. First: On which perception of the events between 1933 and 1945 were the respective attempts at rehabilitation and compensation for Nazi victims in the two German societies based? Second: What relation between former Nazi victims and German post war societies underpinned the respective attempts at restitution? And third: What consequences did German reunification have for this process?
Topic:
Genocide, Human Welfare, and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

5. Institutions for Fiscal Stability (Financial Integration in Europe and Asia)

Author:
Barry Eichengreen and Yung Chul Park
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
One of the most striking aspects of Europe's recent development has been the growth and integration of financial markets. Bond markets have grown explosively since the advent of the euro. Cross border transactions in government bonds have risen sharply with the emergence of the German bund as a benchmark asset, while the volume of corporate bond issues has grown even more dramatically. Securities markets are consolidating around London and Frankfurt, which are competing for the mantle of Europe's dominant financial center. This rapid market integration has raised questions about the viability of Europe's traditional model of bank-based financial intermediation, causing commercial and investment banks to respond with a wave of mergers and acquisitions.
Topic:
Economics and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, London, and Germany

6. Germany: Managing Migration in the 21st Century

Author:
Philip L. Martin
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This monograph reviews Germany's evolution from a country of emigration to a reluctant land of immigration between the 1960s and 1980s, as guest workers settled and asylum seekers arrived. During the 1990s, Germany became a magnet for diverse foreigners, including the families of settled guest workers, newly mobile Eastern Europeans and ethnic Germans, and asylum seekers from throughout the world. Germany, with a relatively structured and rigid labor market and economy, finds it easier to integrate especially unskilled newcomers into generous social welfare programs than into the labor market. Since immigration means change as immigrants and Germans adjust to each other, an aging German populace may resist the changes in the economy and labor market that could facilitate immigrant integration as well as the changes in culture and society that invariably accompany immigrants.
Topic:
Government and Migration
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

7. Restructuring "Germany Inc." The Politics of Company and Takeover Law Reform in Germany and the European Union

Author:
John W. Cioffi
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
The reform of German company law by the Control and Transparency Law ("KonTraG") of 1998 reveals politics of corporate governance liberalization. The reforms strengthened the supervisory board, shareholder rights, and shareholder equality, but left intra-corporate power relations largely intact. Major German financial institutions supported the reform's contribution to the modernization of German finance, but blocked mandatory divestment of equity stakes and cross-shareholding. Conversely, organized labor prevented any erosion of supervisory board codetermination. Paradoxically, by eliminating traditional takeover defenses, the KonTraG's liberalization of company law mobilized German political opposition to the EU's draft Takeover Directive and limited further legal liberalization.
Topic:
Government and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

8. The Academic-Industrial Symbiosis in German Chemical Research, 1905-1939

Author:
Jeffrey Johnson
Publication Date:
05-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper discusses academic-industrial relations in German chemical research from 1905 to the eve of World War II, considering four periods: the decade before World War I, the years of total war and postwar crisis (1916-1923), the renewed crisis (1929-1933), and finally the Nazi years. These periods saw, respectively, the creation of academic-style research laboratories with substantial industrial support; the emergence of industrially-funded organizations to subsidize chemical literature and educational institutions (as well as research); reductions in support for these organizations and in subsidies for contracted academic collaborators, but the expansion of postdoctoral fellowships funded by I.G. Farben; and finally the politicization and militarization of the academic-industrial symbiosis under National Socialism.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, International Political Economy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

9. Capacity Losses, Reconstruction and Unfinished Modernization: The Chemical Industry in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ)/GDR 1945-1965

Author:
Rainer Karlsch
Publication Date:
03-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Between the two World Wars, central Germany (the later GDR) was a preferred region for the foundation of new chemical plants. But after World War II, Soviet occupying troops dismantled 116 chemical plants in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. After the division of Germany became apparent, the Soviet Zone began a policy of self-sufficiency, but the chemical industry of the GDR dropped behind the West German chemical industry in the first postwar decade. After the "Sputnik shock" in 1957 and Khruschev's proclamation of an "economic race," the chemical industry in the Eastern Bloc moved into the center of the economic policy. In November 1958, the GDR enacted, as did the Soviet Union, a special chemical program. The main points of the program were the doubling of the chemical production within seven years, and an even greater increase in production of synthetic fibers and plastic. But the program failed. Decisive for the backsliding of the GDR's chemical industry was the uncoupling from the international division of labor and the integration into the East European economic zone. The GDR's Chemical Industry could find no real equivalent partner in Eastern Europe, and cooperation with the West was restricted for political reasons. The "opting for oil" of the Ulbricht-era became in the Honecker-era a policy of moving "back to coal." The maintaining of carbide chemistry finally ended in an energy crisis and an ecological fiasco.
Topic:
Cold War, Industrial Policy, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

10. Co-Sponsored Projects: Germany's Role In Shaping the New Europe: Architect, Model and Bridge

Author:
Daniel N. Nelson, Andrei S. Markovits, Thomas Banchoff, Patricia A. Davis, Christian Deubner, Lily Gardner Feldman, JoEllyn Murillo Fountain, Stefan Immerfall, Michael Kreile, Carl Lankowski, Barbara Lippert, Susanne Peters, Elke Thiel, and Wolfgang Wessels
Publication Date:
04-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
This paper seeks to explain the continuity in German policy in Europe across the 1990 divide. Although the collapse of the Soviet bloc and reunification transformed the context of German foreign policy, its fundamental direction remained unchanged. The new Germany, like the old, made solidarity with the western allies the cornerstone of its policy in Europe. Chancellor Helmut Kohl did address new policy challenges in the East. But he made stronger western institutions, and a deeper European Union in particular, his top priorities. Neorealism and neoliberalism, this paper argues, cannot adequately explain the strong western orientation of the Federal Republic in the early 1990s. The constellation of power and institutions at the international level left German leaders with different ways to combine association with the West and engagement in the East. In order to explain the priority accorded solidarity with the West, it is necessary to bring in the foreign policy priorities espoused by Kohl and the views of history and its lessons that informed them.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany