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.

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.

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - Topic: German Foreign Policy, London School of Economics (Department of International Relations), language: English, abstract: The end of the Cold War in 1989/90 did not only prompt a fundamental transformation of the international system as a whole; it equally changed the expectations and perceptions of key nation-states acting within that system. This was, as most scholars of International Relations (IR) agree, especially true with regard to reunited Germany. In the run-up to the negotiations of the 'Two-plus-Four Treaty', many observers feared that the demise of the East-West confrontation might encourage the Federal Republic to completely strip off its post-war restraints and use its revamped resources and autonomy more forcefully. By the same token, some European leaders — notably French President François Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — voiced concerns that a resurgence of German power politics seemed far from being just a theoretical possibility. Indeed, some indications of a renewed German propensity to 'go it alone' emerged even before the legal and political terms of unification had been clarified. Chancellor Kohl's '10 Points Plan' of November 1989 aroused deep scepticism. Even more alarmingly, German contributions to armed operations in Bosnia and Kosovo were perceived as incidents of a much more self-cofident security posture. However, a vast majority of German politicians was eager to defuse their neighbours' suspicions, emphasising that they would retain their commitment to a culture of 'civilian power.' The country would remain a driving force for deeper and wider European integration as well as multilateralism within the frameworks of the UN, NATO and CSCE/OSCE. Yet, despite these efforts to address other states' concerns, some observers doubted whether Germany would actually be willing and able to stick to its 'leadership avoidance reflex' in the future. Almost two decades after reunification, it might thus be worthwhile to ask: is Germany still a 'civilian power'? To answer this question, I will first describe different dimensions of political power as they are treated in IR theory and illustrate what 'civilian power' means in this context. Secondly, I will outline in how far particular concepts of foreign policy (FP) behaviour — the models of 'security', 'trading' and 'civilian states' — are capable of grasping the notion of civilian power. Section 4 relates these conceptual frameworks to important features of Germany's actual FP conduct before and after the watershed events of 1989/90.

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.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject 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.