Download or read book The West German Social Democrats 1969 1982 written by Gerard Braunthal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fall of the West German government in 1982 ended the 13-year rule of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as the senior coalition partner under Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt. In perpetual opposition from 1949 to 1966, the Social Democrats finally entered the government as the junior coalition party in 1966; three years later they assumed primary responsibility for guiding the nation. The central theme of this detailed examination of the SPD during its years of governance is that social and economic forces in the nation had a major effect, often unsettling, on the party at a time when it had achieved the pinnacle of political power. Significant changes in the party's organization, membership, leadership, factionalism, ideology, and voter support limited its role within the political system (in the executive and legislative branches) and its influence on domestic and foreign policies. Yet, its ability to remain in power for a comparatively long period attests to its strength and respectability among the voting public. Dr. Gerard Braunthal draws on a wealth of documentation, some unpublished, located primarily in German archives and libraries. In addition, he interviewed more than 120 persons, ranging from the top SPD leaders to staff officials, members, and other specialists, to gain a greater understanding of a party that is one of the most powerful in Western Europe and in the social democratic world, and whose organization has been a model of the twentieth-century mass party.
Download or read book The German Social Democrats Since 1969 written by Gerard Braunthal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-11 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thoroughly revised edition of The West German Social Democrats, 1969-1982: Profile of a Party in Power contrasts the period during which the SPD was in power with its role since 1982 as an opposition party. Even though it was the senior party in the coalition governments of chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, it did not have the influence on domestic and foreign policy in the 1970s that it had hoped for. Nevertheless, it achieved insider status, unlike its dual competitive and cooperative opposition role vis-a-vis the conservative governments of Helmut Kohl. Braunthal also discusses the short-lived East German SPD, which formed during the crumbling months of the German Democratic Republic and then merged with the West German party shortly before unification. In a period when some analysts pronounce the victory of capitalism and the death of socialism and others decry the crises among political parties, the SPD has managed to remain relatively strong. Yet the party, argues the author, will need to enhance its support, especially in eastern Germany, if it expects to regain political power in the 1990s. Such a goal cannot be reached unless it projects a modern image, minimizes intraparty discord, copes successfully with the external social and economic forces affecting its development, and has a dynamic leadership that presents appealing policy alternatives to the Kohl government. Braunthal details the SPD's organization, leadership, factions, constituent associations, ideology, voter support and elections, relations to Parliament and government, and influence on government policies. He draws from a wealth of primary sources, including unpublished German archival records and over 200 interviews with top politicians, party officials, SPD members, and journalists. Braunthal, one of the leading Western scholars on the SPD, presents here the definitive study of this pivotal party.
Download or read book The End of Middle Class Politics written by Sotiris Rizas and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The response of the middle classes to the financial crisis of 2008 is a central theme in the political systems of most developed, Western countries. This book approaches middle class politics from a historical perspective, looking at its progression since the early 1900s. The middle classes contributed significantly and in various ways to the evolution of mass politics in the West, with middle class intellectuals oriented to social and political reform, such as Leonard Hobhouse, Herbert Croly and Leon Bourgeois, influencing the setup of politics and the building of institutions in the early 20th century, and with lower-middle class disaffection fuelling protest politics in the 1890s and 1900s. The rise of Fascism in the interwar period owed much to the perception of liquidation permeating the middle classes in the 1920s and the 1930s as a result of post-World War I hardship and the Crash of 1929-31. Conversely, mass affluence during the “trente glorieuses” was the result of the post-World War II growth strategies adopted by conservatives and social democrats alike. The rise of Thatcherism led to the emergence of a more consumerist and market-oriented middle class that enjoyed a high living standard, but was subjected simultaneously to the turbulences of globalization and the fluctuations of the markets. Political realignments that are currently taking shape after the Crash of 2008 are related to the loss of status and purchasing power of the vast middle class formed during the postwar years. It is also of historical significance to compare various middle class responses in the 2010s to those to the Crash of the 1920s and 1930s. Although authoritarianism and Fascism were the ultimate outcomes of interwar politics, there were, and still are, viable democratic and socially inclusive alternatives.
Download or read book The Two Red Flags written by Dr David Childs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-02-07 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Christian Democratic Workers and the Forging of German Democracy 1920 1980 written by William L. Patch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has democracy flourished in the Federal Republic of Germany despite that country's troubled past? Exhaustive research in German historical archives illuminates the pivotal role played by the veterans of the Christian trade unions of the Weimar Republic, the only group to participate in both of Germany's most successful political experiments after 1945, a 'Christian Democratic' party to unite Catholics and Protestants, and unified labor unions for workers of all political outlooks. They perceived that feuds between the religious confessions and competition among three rival labor federations had greatly facilitated Hitler's rise, and they resolved to bridge both chasms. Playing an influential role on the left wing of the CDU from the 1950s to the 1970s, Christian laborites alleviated class conflict through new welfare programs and laws to grant workers a powerful voice in management decisions. They took the lead in forging the distinctive 'German Model' for labor relations.
Download or read book The Politics of West German Trade Unions written by Andrei Markovits and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1986, this book assesses the politics of the West German trade unions in the context of their larger role as major actors in the polity. By focusing on the historical realities of the labour movement both before and after 1945, the study explains the extent to which organized labour solidified and challenged the dominant structures of politics and authority. It examines the metalworkers’ union, the construction workers’ union, the printers’ union and the chemical workers’ union and shows how the industrial reality of each organisation helped shape its political outlook and strategic thinking. This book will be of particular interest to students of trade unions, industrial relations and political economy in West Germany.
Download or read book The Rise and Demise of German Statism written by Gregg Kvistad and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 1999-03-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: German statism as a political ideology has been the subject of many historical studies. Whereas most of these focus on theoretical texts, cultural works, and vague "traditions", this study understands German statism as a functioning logic of political membership, a logic that has helped to determine who is "in" and who is "out" with regard to the German political community. Tracing statism from the early 19th century through German unification and beyond in the 1990s, the author argues that, with its central concern for a political loyalty that is vetted "from above," it historically served the function of stabilizing the political order and containing democratic mobilization. Beginning in the 1960s, however, a mobilized German democratic consciousness "from below" gradually rejected statism as anachronistic for informing political and policy debate, and German political institutions began to respond to kind.
Download or read book Germany Divided written by A. James McAdams and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germany Divided remains one of the most thought-provoking and comprehensive interpretations of the forty-year relationship between East and West Germany and of the problems of contemporary German unity. In this politically controversial and analytically sophisticated account, A. James McAdams dissects the complex process by which East and West German leaders moved over the years from first pursuing the ideal of German unity, to accepting what they believed to be the inescapable reality of division, and then, finally, to meeting the challenges of an unanticipated reunification. This new edition contains an epilogue in which McAdams considers some of the political and economic problems faced by eastern and western Germans as they entered their fourth year of living together.
Download or read book A History of Modern Germany written by Dietrich Orlow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of Modern Germany is a well-established text that presents a balanced survey of the last 150 years of German history, stretching from nineteenth-century imperial Germany, through political division and reunification, and into the present day. Beginning in the early 1870s and covering topics such as Wilhelmenian Germany, the World Wars, revolution, inflation and putsches, the Weimar Republic, the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the entire period of modern German history. Fully updated throughout, this new edition details foreign policy, political and economic history and includes increased coverage of social and cultural history, and history ‘from the bottom up’, as well as containing a new chapter that brings it right up to the present day. The book is supported by full discussion of past and present historiographic debates, illustrations, maps, further readings and biographies of key German political, economic and cultural figures within the Im Mittelpunkt feature. Fully exploring the complicated path of Germany’s troubled past and stable present, A History of Modern Germany provides the perfect grounding for all students of German history.
Download or read book Mapping the West European Left written by Patrick Camiller and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organized as a series of tightly linked, comparative assessments, Mapping the West European Left provides a guide to the state of the left in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain. While all the essays are detailed historical compositions-setting recent crises and dilemmas in a longer perspective reaching back into the postwar settlement-they articulate original insights into the contemporary political conjuncture. Why did Swedish social democracy lose hegemony and direction while its Norwegian counterpart showed unexpected resilience? What was the background to the Danish rebellion against Maastricht? What are the prospects for the SPD and the Greens in post-unification Germany? Should the British Labour Party embrace electoral reform? What propelled the French Socialist Party from triumph to disaster? And why did the Italian left fail to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the Christian Democrats? Behind the questions explored by the contributors to Mapping the West European Left lie deeper issues concerning the future of radical politics in Europe after the repudiation of Keynesianism and the end of communism. With the individual country analyses synthesized by the editors in a concise and comprehensive introductory essay, this book provides key pointers to the social forces and ideological platforms that offer lines of advance to the left today.
Download or read book Forging Democracy written by Geoff Eley and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text gives a history of the European Left's successes and failures, its high and lows, its accomplishments, insufficiencies, and excesses, and its formative, lasting influence on the political landscape of the West.
Download or read book The Defense of Western Europe written by L.H. Gann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1987, examines the defence forces of Western Europe and assesses Europe’s capacity to defend itself as the 1980s saw the Cold War balance of power shift towards the Soviet Union. Soviet forces were greatly superior to NATO’s in terms of tanks, artillery and combat divisions, and this book analyses the NATO response and capabilities.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of European Politics written by José M. Magone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 1275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Treaty of the European Union was ratified in 1993, the European Union has become an important factor in an ever-increasing number of regimes of pooled sovereignty. This Handbook seeks to present a valuable guide to this new and unique system in the twenty-first century, allowing readers to obtain a better understanding of the emerging multilevel European governance system that links national polities to Europe and the global community. Adopting a pan-European approach, this Handbook brings together the work of leading international academics to cover a wide range of topics such as: the historical and theoretical background the political systems and institutions of both the EU and its individual member nations political parties and party systems political elites civil society and social movements in European politics the political economy of Europe public administration and policy-making external policies of the EU. This is an invaluable and comprehensive resource for students, scholars, researchers and practitioners of the European Union, European politics and comparative politics.
Download or read book Social Democracy and the Working Class written by Stefan Berger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a powerful and original survey of German social democracy breaks new ground in covering the movement's full span, from its origins after the French Revolution, to the present day. Stefan Berger looks beyond narrow party political history to relate Social Democracy to other working class identities in the period and sets the German experience within its wider European context. This timely book considers both the background and long-term perspective on the current rethinking of Social Democratic ideas and values, not only in Germany but also in France, Britain and elsewhere.
Download or read book Politics in Germany written by M. Donald Hancock and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2008-07-10 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germans born in the second decade of the last century will have been a subject of no less than six political regimes, seven if they lived in the former German Democratic Republic. Today, Germany’s democratic polity, pluralistic society, institutional structures, and market economy are growing increasingly strong. In clear and compelling prose, Hancock and Krisch argue that German politics today is the politics of a "normal" European democracy moving toward the EU. The authors discuss Germany’s course of modernization, which involves rapid industrialization and social development following the nation’s first unification in 1871 and its subsequent torturous course of political change embracing Imperial authoritarianism, the democratic experiment of the Weimar Republic, Nazi totalitarianism, and postwar variants of communism and Western-style democracy. Chapters detail the country’s political history, as well as its culture, new constitutional debates, parties, and economic policy, and culminate in a look at Germany in global context.
Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Democracy written by Lyman Howard Legters and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1994 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to Critical Perspectives on Democracy suggest that there are ways of looking at democracy that go beyond the registration of preference among the existing available options for the governance of a society. They all begin by taking seriously the defining property of democracy, self-governance, and the rules and institutional forms required to effectuate democracy. They collectively enjoin the perspective that democratic theorists need to inform their empirical enterprise with elaborations of the normative bases--equal concern and respect for persons, the values of community and citizenship, the satisfaction of human interests--of democratic politics.
Download or read book Developments in West German Politics written by Gordon Smith and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives up-to-date assessments of key trends and issues in the Federal Republic with sufficient background analysis to make the treatment of the various topics accessible to those without detailed prior knowledge of German politics.
