Promises made,promises broken: a political economic perspective on German unification

The article provides an overview of the state of the East German economy after more than ten years of unification. It demonstrates that, contrary to what had been promised in 1990, the situation is far from ‘flourishing landscapes’. We argue that a number of policy mistakes, based in the desire of the then government to maintain electoral support, is responsible for this. In addition, the behaviour of West German labour market participants is held responsible for the dismal record of unemployment in East Germany. Hence, political and distributional conflicts lie at the root of the still present East German problem.     

The present state and future prospects of the German Volksparteien

Party performance in the 1994 ‘super'‐election year led many observers to conclude that the major parties had managed to stabilise their position. However, subsequent Land elections show a continuing downward trend in their support, evident since the 1980s, and party membership is also falling. None the less, the major parties will retain their predominance at the parliamentary level in government. In consequence there is a widening gap between their control of the party state and the basis for their legitimation in society. This development may be intensified in view of the economic and social problems faced by the Federal Republic.     

Australian POW in German Captivity in the Second World War

When history has taken an interest in the Australian POW experience in the Second World War, the focus has been largely on those in Japanese captivity, where suffering was immense and mortality rates high. Popular culture has reinforced the perception that those who fell into German hands had it easy, living fairly comfortable existences punctuated with adventurous episodes, typically in the form of escape attempts. This essay seeks to correct the misperceptions arising from the “Colditz myth” by examining the Australian experience of captivity in Germany, drawing on both Australian and German sources. Two aspects of that experience are highlighted, namely the experience of work, as it was required of the vast majority of POW, and that of the strange phenomenon of “holiday camps”.     

Exploring the link between trust and political participation in a divided society: evidence from South Africa

In empirical research political scientists have found that individuals with higher levels of trust participate more frequently in politics. But how does this link manifest in deeply divided societies? Examining South Africa 10 years after transitioning to democracy, this paper argues that South Africans’ attitudes towards ethnic others shape their decision to participate in political activities. Drawing upon scholarship on the micro-foundations of trust and participation and using Afrobarometer survey data from over 2000 respondents across South Africa in 2005, I find that South Africans who have been more trusting of non-coethnics have participated more frequently in a broad range of political activities.     

Bringing actors back in: political choices and sources of post-Soviet regime dynamics

One might summarize the state of the field of research into contemporary Russian politics as a “dismal consensus”: most observers believe that durable authoritarianism has consolidated itself, and there is very little chance of democratization in the foreseeable future. However, political regime changes are often launched and developed overtime as side effects of moves made by political actors, and their outcomes are not predetermined. This article aims to go beyond this “dismal consensus,” and revisits some of the arguments on the role of structure and agency in post-Soviet regime dynamics. Apart from the changes in structural variables, it reconsiders the role of the incentives and choices of self-interested political actors, who are not always omnipotent and well-informed strategists. The overall dismal tendencies nevertheless leave some “bias for hope” in the analysis of regime dynamics in post-Soviet Eurasia and beyond.     

East German political attitudes: Socialist legacies v. situational factors a false antithesis

This paper introduces the two main competing approaches that attempt to explain east German political attitudes in post‐unification Germany, the ‘situational thesis’ and the ‘socialisation thesis’. Furthermore, the paper suggests that these ‘either/or’ approaches are in fact inseparable and only make sense when taken together. Political attitudes in east Germany are influenced by the past, the recent past and the present. The result of both the socialisation process in the GDR and the traumatic transformation process following unification is weak civic participation and a lack of trust in formal institutions. Without trust and without a vibrant civil society, economic performance will remain low.     

Crimes Unspoken: The Rape of German Women at the End of the Second World War

Crimes Unspoken: The Rape of German Women at the End of the Second World War . By Miriam Gebhardt. Translated by Nick Somers (Cambridge: Polity, 2017), pp.vii + 252. £18.17 (hb).     

Securing the German Domestic Front in the Second World War: Prosecution of Subversion before the People's Court

Article Five of the Special Wartime Penal Code served as the basis for the prosecution of the crime of Wehrkraftzersetzung (“subversion”) in the Third Reich. Using a sample of sixty‐six cases dealing with defeatist statements tried before the People's Court, this article argues that these subversion cases clearly demonstrate the politicisation of the judicial process under the Nazi regime. The application of an extraordinarily broad interpretation of the term “public”— virtually obliterating any notion of a private sphere — as well as a draconian use of the death penalty (two‐thirds of defendants were sentenced to death and executed) both provide evidence that the prosecution of subversion can be understood as one component of a broader effort by the Hitler regime to achieve total control over society in pursuit of total war.     

Pathways to Karlsruhe: A Sequence Analysis of the Careers of German Federal Constitutional Court Judges

Judges of the German Federal Constitutional Court can be seen as both judicial and political elites. Yet up to now there is no systematic work on the Court's' judges and especially their careers prior to their appointments. Using sequence analysis, this article identifies four relatively distinct clusters of career characteristics: academia, administration (and administrative courts), ordinary jurisdiction and politics. Judges whose career background is limited to the judicial sphere mostly advance from a level below the Länder to the Länder and then on to the federal level, while those with a background in politics or administration switch less often among them. Furthermore, little evidence was found to suggest that differences in the judges' career paths can be explained by reference to the body that elected them (Bundestag or Bundesrat) or the party that nominated them (CDU/CSU or SPD). The article also illustrates the possibilities of sequence analysis for elite studies.     

Employment strategies in the Third World: A critique

The recent critique and outright dismissal of the concept and practice of secularism has not been informed by sustained historical and sociological analysis of Indian society. Critics of secularism have taken their theoretical and Indological abstractions too seriously and have paid scant attention to the complex relationship between ideologies and changing social structures and institutions. Their one-dimensional focus on religion per se has obscured the structural similarities between communal violence and other types of sectarian and ethnic conflicts.

To accept the ideology of secularism is to accept the ideologies of progress and modernity as the new justification of domination, and the use of violence to achieve and sustain ideologies as the new opiates of the masses (Ashis Nandy, 1988:192).

The principle of secularism basically demands symmetric treatment of different religious communities in politics and in the affairs of the state. It is not obvious why such symmetric treatment must somehow involve “the use of violence to achieve and sustain ideologies as the new opiates of the masses”…. There are good reasons to resist the contrary enticements that have been so plentifully offered recently. The winter of our discontent might not be giving away, right now, to a glorious summer, but the abandonment of secularism would make things far more wintry than they currently are (Amartya Sen, 1996:37–43).