Negotiating for the Future: Lessons for American Diplomacy from German Unification
With Robert Zoellick and Horst Teltschik On December 9, 2019, AICGS presented a lecture by Robert Zoellick on “Negotiating for the Future: Lessons for American Diplomacy from German Unification.” Mr. …
A Farewell to Power: Germany’s Social Democratic Party After the Election of a New Party Leadership
The Social Democratic Party, Germany’s oldest democratic party which emerged from an early German labor movement, survived the challenge of communism after World War I, was forced into exile during …
Social Democracy in Search of Its Identity
Despite untamed global capitalism and growing inequality within advanced economies, the traditional left continues to be in sharp decline. Social democratic parties lost significant support in almost all Western democracies, …
Maneuvering Around the Middle: Party Politics in 2020
In the last two weeks, four political parties in Germany have gathered at their annual conferences to start positioning themselves for the next federal election, currently scheduled for 2021. In …
The Grand Coalition’s Mid-term Review and Recent Legislation
German politics has become much more unpredictable in recent years. There have been half a dozen instances when it seemed that the rather unloved grand coalition (GroKo) would break up …
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Thirty Years After the Fall: The Lessons of 2019
As we commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, one lingering question remains. Why were so many people shocked when it happened? We had enough warning. There was no reason …
Great Expectations: Germany, America, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall Thirty Years Later
As Germany commemorates the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a look back to 1989 and the expectations that surrounded that momentous event reveals some that were …
Deutschland einig Mutti-Land?
Characterized as “the triumph of the Vaterland,” unification was a male-normed, male-dominated process, despite the significantly different gender regimes found in the two German states through 1989. In July 1990, Helmut Kohl …
Inner Unity and Regional Diversity
The unification of the two German states in 1990 prompted expectations of harmonization in political culture and promises of equivalent living conditions. Almost three decades later, the revival of narratives …
Episode 15: A European China Strategy
In this episode of The Zeitgeist, AICGS President Jeff Rathke talks with Reinhard Bütikofer, Member of the European Parliament and Chair of the EP’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s …
The Economics of AfD Expansion
With the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieving almost 25 percent in the elections in the two east German states of Brandenburg and Saxony in September 2019, and both …
