AGI

Society, Culture & Politics

The AGI Society, Culture & Politics Program focuses on crucial topics within the German-American dialogue, including: demographic change, migration/integration, and aging societies; electoral politics at the national, state, and European levels, and comparative analysis of Germany and the United States; diversity within Germany, Europe, and the United States; the politics of collective memory and identity, Holocaust remembrance and reconciliation, and shifting conceptions of national identity that shape perspectives and policy responses.
Reset

Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman Speaks on the Occasion of 50 Years of German-Israeli Diplomatic Relations

On May 12, 2015, Germany and Israel celebrated fifty years of diplomatic relations, an anniversary that has generated extensive reflection on this remarkable friendship seventy years after the end of …

Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman Chairs Panel on “2015 and Its Horrors”

On May 13, 2015, Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman, Harry & Helen Gray Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at AGI, chaired a panel on the Armenian genocide …

A Harsh Reality

With recent headlines decrying poor treatment of refugees—from the Rohingya in South Asia to African migrants in the Mediterranean—the issue of human rights and the aid that these destitute people …

Soft Power: Its Use in German and American Cultural Diplomacy

At an AGI workshop about Germany’s cultural policies in 1998, Harvard historian Charles Maier summarized his critical observations in one sentence: “Germany is a country that wants to run without …

An Aging Germany in a Young World: Adapting to Demographic Changes

In most of the developed world, birth rates have been falling.  Population decline results in economic and social strains and can even threaten national security.  Germany is a particularly severe …

Developing Advanced Work-Based Higher Education: What Germany and the U.S. Can Learn from Each Other

Currently, many countries are experiencing a strong renewed interest in work-based training.[1] When it comes to discussions in this field, American policymakers usually identify dual apprenticeship training as the “crown …

How Far Can Satire Go?

Does satire have every right? Can any religious figure or human being be parodied? The deadly attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 in Paris revived …

Opposing Islamization: The PEGIDA Movement in Germany

Founding and Background Since October 20, 2014, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA, Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes) has organized weekly Monday demonstrations or evening …

Tri-Regional Partnering on Reconciliation in East Asia: Pivotal to Shaping the Order of the Twenty-First Century?

Policy Report 59 This Policy Report suggests a tri-regional “partnering in leadership” to assuage the tensions and lingering hostility in East Asia.  Partners are necessary from the three regions involved: East …

Second Life of Political Leaders: A Case Study of Adolf Hitler

The Role of Adolf Hitler’s Image in American Popular Culture In recent times, the term “second life” relates to a web game in which people create characters of themselves. However, they …

A World in Flux: German American Relations in a Changing American Order

This year’s AGI Annual Symposium is framed around the idea of “A World in Flux”: the relative decline of the West’s economic power; the  need to  adapt our work forces …