Daedalus articles from January 1994

Daedalus archives from January 1994

Germany's social and political culture: change through consensus? (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... Is Germany a pays legal, or is it already a pays reel? How can one write meaningfully about the social and political culture of a country which, after decades of division, has only recently recovered its state unity? Is it not more appropriate...

Democracy in Germany. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... Trauma is a wound or shock produced by sudden injury, as from violence or accident. For Germany and the Germans, the twentieth century has been a succession of traumas: the war of 1914 -1918; the inadequate Weimar Republic, burdened by the...

Germany at the crossroads: on the efficiency of the German economy. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... Germany's situation today is marked by two challenges which affect and influence each other economically and politically. Because they developed fully independently of each other, their chance crossing at the beginning of this last decade of...

Immigration and social peace in united Germany. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... United Germany as a Destination for immigrants raises hopes and fears. Dreams and nightmares collide at its borders: those who are outside dream of entering; those who are inside fear outsiders will indeed come and demand a share of the...

Rebuilding of a nation: the Germans before and after unification. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... As we have known since Hegel, the owl of Minerva begins its flight only at dusk. The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was already halfway into the fourth decade of her existence when she attained full self-consciousness. In 1986, four years...

On German identity. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... Germany's reunification or unification - as the Germans prefer to call it - took place at a time when, following eight years of sound economic growth, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) seemed able to bear the anticipated financial burden....

The politics of a united Germany. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... IMAGINE YOURSELF AT HOME ON CHRISTMAS DAY, celebrating with your family, when suddenly you hear a knock at the door. The visitors turn out to be relatives, people with whom you exchange Christmas cards, but otherwise you have not had much...

Crisis of unification: how Germany changes. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... Germany has changed more in he last four years than it has in the last four decades. How are Germans coping with the opportunities and challenges created by the breakdown of communism and national unification? Will the new Germany be mainly a...

Multi-German Germany. (sociological impact of German reunification) (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... ON AUGUST 2, 1802, A LETTER WAS SENT from Chateau Coppet, a small castle on the shores of Lake Geneva to Charles de Villers, a French officer, journalist, and scientist then living in Germany. Signed by Anne-Louise-Germaine de Stael-Holstein,...

Aspects of society and identity in the new Germany. (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... When the German Democratic Republic (GDR) collapsed in 1989-1990, West Germany's success story - a story of economic prosperity and democratic stability - appeared to have been vindicated. The accession on October 3, 1990 of the newly recreated...

Two catastrophes, two causes, and how the Germans dealt with them. (historical influences in German politics and their impact on German reunification) (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... German unification and the end of the East-west conflict with its visible and foreseeable results for the Germans, their neighbors, and the world have reopened chapters of European history which some believe had been forever closed. With the...

The role of the Protestant Church in German unification. (history of church's political influence in the former East Germany) (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... In the years since 1989, the Protestant Church in East Germany has undergone - one might say suffered - a peculiar transformation in the eyes of the public. Celebrated at first as "the mother of the Revolution," it is now accused of having been...

Observations on the political class in Germany. (lack of a traditional, political power group) (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... I Germany has paid a high price for Hitler's war and its consequences - so high, in fact, that Germans tend to repress it. Three consequences stand out: first, the disappearance of the Jewish population through the Holocaust; second,...

Dealing with a Stasi past. (East Germany's brutal state security agency) (Germany in Transition)
January 1, 1994... In the autumn of 1989, following a period of crippling depression, after years of remaining silent, a great number of men and women began to protest against a fossilized dictatorship no longer able to persuade its citizens that it was doing its...