‘Responsibility for Europe’: the EU policy of the German Social Democrats since unification

The following article analyses the European Union (EU) policy of the German Social Democrats (SPD) since German unity. Starting from the cross-party European consensus in the early 1990s SPD policy has altered significantly in response to major changes in the ‘policy context’ such as the party's rise from opposition to government, German unification and increasing European integration. Policy change in the SPD has been defined by two dynamics: greater ‘pragmatism’ among a new generation of party leaders that has allowed a ‘freer’ interpretation of German interests; and a gradual prioritisation of EU policy in the party elite that has seen it integrated into a multi-level programme for political governance. The article examines how these changes manifested themselves in SPD policy, focusing on European Economic and Monetary Union and the debate on ‘the future of Europe’.     

German policy towards the European union: The effects of historical memory

Reflection on the past and its implications shaped German policy towards the European Union during the early 1990s. Helmut Kohl's post‐reunification foreign policy rhetoric reveals two prominent historical themes: that European integration is a ‘question of war and peace’, and that German unity and European unity represent ‘two sides of the same coin’. In the post‐Cold War context, both themes served to orient and legitimate his European policy. They informed Kohl's strong support for the realisation of the Maastricht Treaty. And they were central to his efforts to maintain domestic political support for deeper integration.     

Are We Doing Enough? Change and Continuity in the German Approach to Crisis Management

In the two-and-a-half decades since unification Germany has developed a distinctive approach towards international crisis management. This approach accepts the need to engage in the full spectrum of military and civilian operations but maintains a clear preference for the latter. Consequently, the European Union with its profile as a civil–military actor in international security is the preferred framework for German contributions. The article analyses the development of the German approach during the governments of Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel in the light of three interlinked debates on German foreign policy: continuity and change; multilateralism; and leadership. The announcement of a more active German foreign policy in 2014 has reanimated these debates. Concentrating its efforts on networked security and capacity building Germany has become an indispensable player in international crisis management. At the same time Germany's deeply rooted attachment to a culture of military restraint and continued reluctance to lead, limit its ability to work for necessary reforms at the European level.     

Europe and the German Model: Growing Tension or Symbiosis?

Recent conflicts between the Commission of the European Communities and the German government suggest a growing tension between structures of the German political economy and the agenda of economic liberalisation fostered by European integration. Will mounting conflict ultimately force Germany to choose between its commitment to the integrity of the social market economy and support for European economic integration? This article considers the cases of Germany's public sector banks and the German postal service. Both entail potential conflict between the public service functions integral to the social market economy and the competition central to Europe's single market. Examination of these cases suggests that, rather than forcing change on a reluctant Germany and jeopardising the core of the social market economy (SME), enforcement of European competition policy from Brussels has taken place in fundamental symbiosis with the SME. Nonetheless, tensions between federal government and Länder indicate that a positive-sum relationship between Europe's single market and Germany's social market economy may be constrained by German federalism.     

Looking on: France and the new Germany

Franco‐German reconciliation lies at the root of post‐war European co‐operation. The Franco‐German alliance, formalised in 1963, has become a powerful axis with which all other European powers have had to deal. It is contended in this article that the main French fears over German unification were those of a nation discovering itself to be a junior partner in a relationship within which it had long pretended to seniority. This article retraces French reactions to German unification during 1989–90, and reviews the state of contemporary Franco‐German relations with regard to personal relationships, changing perceptions of the equilibrium of the Franco‐German alliance, foreign policy, relations with central and eastern Europe, and European integration.     

East Germany: another party landscape

Viewed from the heart of the EU in Brussels, German European policy has not been significantly altered by unification. A major reason for this policy continuity is the stability of the composition of German's foreign policy ‘establishment’ in the federal bureaucracy as well as in the political parties. For a combination of reasons, including the economic conjuncture, the enhanced European policy role of the Länder governments, and the lack of socialisation of east Germans into the European project after the Second World War, the political climate has, however, grown more hostile to closer integration. This may prove though to be a conjunctural phenomenon, which will change with an upturn of the German economy. There will be no ‘Britishisation’ of German European policy.     

The Europeanisation of the German Bundestag: Institutional change and informal adaptation

At first glance, the Europeanisation of the German Bundestag seems quite straightforward: in reaction to the process of European integration the Bundestag acquired a set of comparatively strong participation and scrutiny rights in EU politics. It therefore seems rather astonishing that German members of parliament make only very little use of these rights. Different explanations have been put forward in the literature, such as the complicated decision-making system of the EU and the government's gate-keeper position within it, institutional flaws of the German scrutiny system as well as the overall consensus on European integration and the low electoral salience of EU issues. The paper contributes to this discussion in two respects: On the one hand, it offers an additional explanation for the infrequent use of formal instruments. The main argument is that the formal instruments of scrutiny in EU affairs are incompatible with both the overall logic of a parliamentary system as well as the challenges of policy-making in the EU multilevel system. On the other hand, the paper argues that the exclusive focus on the use of formal parliamentary scrutiny rights leads us to overlook more informal means of parliamentary influence and therefore to underestimate the involvement of German parliamentarians in EU affairs. Thus, in order to fully assess processes of parliamentary Europeanisation, we need to take forms of informal or strategic Europeanisation into account.     

Germany in Europe: return of the nightmare or towards an engaged Germany in a new Europe?

Especially since (re-)unification, perceptions of Germany alternate between the fear of the return of the German hegemon and – at the same time – the diametrically opposed call for more German leadership based on Germany's outstanding pro-European engagement. Nonetheless, Germany's foreign policy has changed little since 1989: it is still cautious rather than assertive. Due to Germany's experience with the two world wars, German foreign policy places great value on the enlargement as well as the deepening of the EU. In sum, Germany can best be characterised as a normal and engaged European state.     

‘Condemned forever to becoming and never to being’? The Weise Commission and German Military Isomorphism

Despite several post-Cold War reforms which have promised far-reaching change, the Bundeswehr faces a set of deficits in force structures, capabilities, doctrines and military adaptation, which leave it in danger of slipping permanently behind its European partners. The study examines the extent to which reforms proposed by the Commission on Structural Reform of the Bundeswehr will remedy these deficiencies. It finds that the proposals of the Commission include several important measures which will accelerate German convergence with the reforms of its European partners. However, the Commission fails to address several fundamental problems which impair the Bundeswehr's capacity to adapt to ongoing operations. The article critically engages with the existing theoretical literature on German defence policy and highlights the utility of neoclassical realism in explaining the process and outcome of German defence reform. The study also points to the urgent requirement for further comparative scholarship on post-Cold War European military adaptation and civil–military relations in defence planning.     

从文化共同体到后古典民族国家:德国民族国家演进浅析

长期封建割据造成德国民族国家的形成晚于英、法等传统西方国家。其建立民族国家的路径是先有民族,后有国家。德国民族国家是建立在由血缘、历史、语言、文化等要素构成的"文化共同体"的基础上,这一文化共同体同时也构成了德国民族认同的核心要素。受到历史和地缘政治因素的影响,德国民族国家的发展道路较为特殊,这也决定了其融入西方过程的曲折与漫长。20世纪90年代,两德重新统一后,德国与其他欧盟成员国一样进入后古典民族国家形态,将主权部分地让渡给超国家共同体。德国民族国家目前需要解决的是欧盟治理结构中的"新德国问题"。     

Political Culture, Konrad Adenauer, and the Reunification of Germany: an Attempt at Sorting Out a Number of Problems in a Current Debate.

Alfred Heuss, Versagen und Verhaengnis, Vom Ruin deutscher Geschichte und ihres Verstaendnisses (Failure and Disaster, On the Ruin of German History and its Comprehension), Berlin: Siedler, 1984, 213 pp.; Herbert Ammon and Theodor Schweisfurth, Friedensvertrag, Deutsche Konfoederation, Europaeisches Sicherheitssystem (Peace Treaty, German Confederacy, European Security System), Starnberg: IBF Verlag, 1985, 95 pp.;
Hans-Peter Schwarz, Die gezaehmten Deutschen, von der Machtbesessenheit zur Machtvergessenheit (The Tamed Germans, From the Obsession with Power to the Oblivion of Power), Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1985, 191 pp.;
Hans-Peter Schwarz, Adenauer, Der Aufstieg: 1876–1952 (Adenauer, The Rise: 1876–1952). Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1986, 1021 pp.;
Dieter Blumenwitz and Boris Meissner (eds.), Die Uebenvindung der europaeischen Teilung und die deutsche Frage (The Surmounting of the Division of Europe and the German Question), Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1986, 143 pp.;
Wolfgang Seiffert, Das ganze Deutschland, Perspektiven der Wiedervereinigung (The Whole Germany, Perspectives of Re-Unification), Munich-Zurich: Piper, 1986, 377 pp.     

Sources of EU Support: The Case of Germany

The determinants of support for European integration and the European Union have been analysed by previous research from a comparative perspective: factors that help to explain the differences between the levels of support of the EU member states are considered to be the factors that drive EU support in general. This article takes a different approach using a cross-time perspective to identify the sources of EU support and to investigate the causal structure of the effects. We analyse German support for European integration which is very volatile over time and test potential explanations for these fluctuations. Three bundles of factors are considered: the economy, the increasing scope of EU policies, and the domestic political process. It appears that all three are associated with fluctuations of German support for European integration. However, domestic politics seems to be mightier than often understood. The empirical evidence that is presented in support of these claims is taken from the Mannheim Eurobarometer Trendfile and recent Eurobarometer surveys, from the Comparative Political Data Set, and from the official handbook of the Bundestag.     

The Supply Side of Second-Order Elections: Comparing German National and European Election Manifestos

The second-order character of past European elections is a well-established hypothesis with respect to voter turnout and voting behaviour. This paper presents a conceptual framework for testing this hypothesis on the supply side of European elections. It includes three groups of indicators allowing for the comparison of national and European election manifestos to determine the latter's second-order nature: (1) resource allocation, measured by the number of actors involved in manifesto adoption and by the manifestos' length; (2) the manifestos' content, comparing issue congruence and framing; and (3) political competition, measured by the ideological distance between manifestos. Building on this, we analyse the manifestos of all relevant German parties in the 2009 European and national elections using Comparative Manifesto Project data as well as original, self-created data on election manifestos. We find major variations between parties which can neither be explained by government participation nor satisfaction with the European Union.     

Notes on contributors

The pre-unification European and foreign policy of the ‘old’ Federal Republic was marked by four principal traits: an emphatically Western orientation, a strong commitment to multilateralism underpinned by close bilateral relations with France and the US, its civilian character, and Euro-centrism. Although it took place in radically different circumstances and under radically different conditions to the first, the second German unification nonetheless gave rise to fears among the political leaders of many other states in Western, Central and Eastern Europe – and among the proponents of some international relations theories – that it would herald sweeping changes in Germany's foreign policy orientation and profoundly destabilise inter-state relations in Europe. The contributions to this volume show that, in the decade following the second unification, there has been more continuity than change in German European and foreign policy. The most important change concerns attitudes and behaviour in respect of the use of military force. Under the pressure of its Western allies and events in the Balkans which have forced it to choose between opposition to war and opposition to genocide, Germany has shed much of its earlier inhibitions concerning the use of military force and become much more like a ‘normal’ big power in Europe. However, because this trend has been explicitly encouraged and welcomed by Germany's allies and partners and because it has taken place exclusively within the multilateral frameworks of NATO and the EU, it does not presage the return of a political ‘Frankenstein monster’ or the revival of the pre-Second World War patterns of European inter-state rivalry. The second German unification will assuredly not turn out to be a re-run of the first.     

Contrasting First- and Second-Order Electoral Behaviour: Determinants of Individual Party Choice in European and German Federal Elections

In contrast to national elections, both parties and voters are assumed to think that ‘less is at stake’ in European elections: Campaigns are less intense, turnout is lower, and citizens are more inclined to ‘vote with their hearts’. The latter should be reflected in differing rationales of voting – party choice should not be based on identical determinants in national and European elections. However, this hypothesis has not been sufficiently tested and most of the research is based on the analysis of aggregated data while causal explanations are located on the micro level. This paper compares vote functions of individuals in regard to the 2009 European Parliament election as well as the 2009 German Federal election. Using data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), comparison of explanatory models shows that party choice on both levels is neither fundamentally different nor does it fit into the pattern of second-order electoral behaviour.     

How to Become an Independent Agency: The Creation of the German Federal Network Agency

The German Federal Network Agency (FNA) was established in 2005 as multi-utilities regulator thereby creating Germany's first energy regulator. It maintains a quite exceptional position in the landscape of German agencies because of its far-reaching independence from political influence. This independence represents an empirical puzzle, because in Germany no comprehensive agencification of the federal administration can be observed and independent agencies are rather an exception than a rule. This article explores whether this puzzle can be plausibly solved by the approach of institutional isomorphism. It argues that the German government faced informal pressure from the European Commission and its endeavour to build a network of European energy regulators at the European level. Furthermore, independent regulatory agencies increasingly became a kind of guiding model in the utilities sector. Therefore, mechanisms of coercive and mimetic isomorphism can be seen as plausible explanations of the agency's independence.     

The Missing Fifth Dimension: The Writing of Australian History in Germany*

German historical writing about Australia can be traced back to the early periods of European exploration of Terra incognita. A corpus of German‐Australian literature exists in the historical notes that were part of early travel books, geographic sketches and emigrant guides. Historical fiction provides another element. However an empirical historiography which elevated Australian history from footnotes and established it as the focus of a professional discipline did not develop until later. Australia was too often wrongly viewed as a space without history. This article examines the professional treatment of Australian history in Germany and the difficult path which faced those who sought to establish the history of Australia as an independent research field. It focuses upon three aspects: (a) the historical background of German Overseas Studies; (b) Australian history as topic in Germany's historiography; and (c) the post‐war situation of Australian historical studies in Germany.     

Putting Local Associations Into their Context. Preliminary Results from a Swiss Study of Local Associations

The paper presents results from the Swiss case of the European comparative project CID (Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy). This project examines the relationship between political institutional assets and civic and political engagement in several Western and Eastern European countries. The paper seeks to investigate how civic engagement can be generated and shaped by a given institutional and political context as well as by a peculiar community size. The central hypothesis is that the context affects the character of local participation. To verify this, the papers examines two different Swiss cantons: the German speaking Canton of Bern and the French speaking Canton of Vaud. Moreover, for each canton, four local communities of different size have been selected. This research design discusses how participation is fostered by a more open political opportunity structure (the German canton), and how this combines with the size of the community.     

German expellee organisations in the enlarged EU

This article examines German expellees (Vertriebene) as an interest group in domestic and enlarged European Union contexts. While their background and motivations may be unique, they have similarities to other non-party actors aiming to influence political and/or legal processes. German governments have made rhetorical and financial expressions of support but privileged foreign policy considerations over core expellee demands and sought to contain them as an internal issue. EU enlargement and accession by CEE states to its legal bases has been interpreted as opening new possibilities. A ‘Europeanising’ of ‘justice’ may have unintended implications for relations among European states and peoples.     

Adapting to Lisbon: Reforming the Role of German Landesparlamente in EU Affairs

In Europeanisation studies subnational parliaments are so far treated as a quantité négligeable – despite the fact that their key functions are strongly affected by European integration and they are perceived as losers of European integration. Given the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty, which acknowledges a role for subnational parliaments on subsidiarity issues, and given the concept of parliamentary ‘responsibility for integration’ introduced by the German Bundesverfassungsgericht, this represents a substantial gap. These recent changes in the institutional environment have led to a wave of reforms in the German Landesparlamente concerning their EU-related functions. The key strategy is strengthening the control function vis-à-vis the Länder governments. The high degree of convergence in terms of control strategies and instruments is explained by the fact that these reforms follow by and large the path adopted in the aftermath of the Maastricht Treaty, but with some interesting modifications.