Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: German Foreign Policy, grade: 72 (distinction), Durham University (SGIA), language: English, abstract: Die Arbeit behandelt die Frage, ob die Außenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland nach wie vor als diejenige einer sog. "Zivilmacht" angesehen werden kann. Hierzu wird nach einer kurzen Einführung auf die Entstehungsgeschichte der Bundesrepublik sowie die Eigenschaften des "Zivilmacht"-Konzeptes eingegangen. Im Anschluss daran werden die entscheidenden Ereignisse beleuchtet, die zu der Erosion des "Zivilmacht"-Konzeptes geführt haben, insb. das deutsche Engagement im Kosovo (1999) und in Afghanistan, sowie das "Nein" zum Irakkrieg. The essay deals with the question of whether the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany may still be considered that of a so-called "civilian power". Following a brief introduction, the history of the Federal Republic and the characteristics of the "civilian power" concept are discussed. Subsequently, the decisive events that led to the erosion of the "civilian power" concept, especially the German engagement in Kosovo (1999) and Afghanistan, as well as the "no" to the war in Iraq make up the second part.

This comprehensive, in-depth assessment of the German foreign policy record under the Red-Green government of Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer from 1998 to 2005, produced by a team of German and international experts, explores the idea of continuity and the sources, depths and directions of German foreign policy.

In 1990, the future of Europe's international politics hinged on two questions. How would unification affect the conduct of German foreign policy? Would those institutions that had given security and prosperity to Western Europe during the Cold War now do the same for the entire continent, and if so, how. The intersection of these questions is the topic of this book, which explores, quite plainly, what made Germany's policies towards its immediate Eastern neighbours tick.

The central aim of this book is to foster connections between scholarly discussions of German foreign policy and broader theoretical debates in International Relations and beyond. While there has been a lively discussion about ‘new German foreign policy’, this book argues that it has not engaged substantially with international and foreign policy theory, especially with respect to its more recent developments. Reviewing the recent literature on German foreign policy, this book posits that the most discussed works are still largely provided by the ‘Altmeister’ (Maull, Szabo, Bulmer and Paterson) who were already dominating the field a quarter of a century ago. While there is a general decline in the academic study of German foreign policy, the chapters in this edited volume show that a range of novel, theoretically sophisticated but often disconnected scholarship has appeared on the margins. This book contributes to this emerging work by providing conceptual interrogations, which question the existing research and provide theoretically-grounded alternatives; initiating critical discussions and evaluations of the nature of Germany’s actorness and the environment in which it operates and proposing applications of less familiar perspectives on German foreign policy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of German Politics.

In the aftermath of World War II, American policymakers turned to the task of rebuilding Europe while keeping communism at bay. In Germany, formally divided since 1949,the United States prioritized the political, economic, and, eventually, military integration of the fledgling Federal Republic with the West. The extraordinary success story of forging this alliance has dominated our historical under-standing of the American-German relationship. Largely left out of the grand narrative of U.S.–German relations were most East Germans who found themselves caught under Soviet and then communist control by the post-1945 geo-political fallout of the war that Nazi Germany had launched. They were the ones who most dearly paid the price for the country's division. This book writes the East Germans—both leadership and general populace—back into that history as objects of American policy and as historical agents in their own right Based on recently declassified documents from American, Russian, and German archives, this book demonstrates that U.S. efforts from 1945 to 1953 went beyond building a prosperous democracy in western Germany and "containing" Soviet-Communist power to the east. Under the Truman and then the Eisenhower administrations, American policy also included efforts to undermine and "roll back" Soviet and German communist control in the eastern part of the country. This story sheds light on a dark-er side to the American Cold War in Germany: propaganda, covert operations, economic pressure, and psychological warfare. Christian F. Ostermann takes an international history approach, capturing Soviet and East German responses and actions, and drawing a rich and complex picture of the early East–West confrontation in the heart of Europe.

The post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan set standards for postconflict nation-building that have not since been matched. Only in recent years has the United States has felt the need to participate in similar transformations, but it is now facing one of the most challenging prospects since the 1940s: Iraq. The authors review seven case studies--Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan--and seek lessons about what worked well and what did not. Then, they examine the Iraq situation in light of these lessons. Success in Iraq will require an extensive commitment of financial, military, and political resources for a long time. The United States cannot afford to contemplate early exit strategies and cannot afford to leave the job half completed.

Drawing upon a multi-disciplinary methodology employing diverse written sources, material practices and vivid life histories, Faith in the family seeks to assess the impact of the Second Vatican Council on the ordinary believer, alongside contemporaneous shifts in British society relating to social mobility, the sixties, sexual morality and secularisation. Chapters examine the changes in the Roman Catholic liturgy and Christology; devotion to Mary, the rosary and the place of women in the family and church, as well as the enduring (but shifting) popularity of Saints Bernadette and Thérèse.Appealing to students of modern British gender and cultural history, as well as a general readership interested in religious life in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century, Faith in the family illustrates that despite unmistakable differences in their cultural accoutrements and interpretations of Catholicism, English Catholics continued to identify with and practise the 'Faith of Our Fathers' before and after Vatican II.