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Featured Article | German Politics

January 17, 2018

Interested in German politics? Looking for a timely and stimulating read? Look no further! Check out the journal German Politics. Former JSIS DAAD Professor Frank Wendler, Director of the Center for European Studies Professor Sabine Lang, and Professor of Comparative Politics and Gender Studies Joyce Mushaben recently edited a special issue of German Politics titled “German Unification as a Catalyst for Change: Linking Political Transformation at the Domestic and International Levels.” This special issue (Vol. 4, 2017) covers fundamental social, political and economic changes that have influenced the Federal Republic since 1990. The articles delve into the dynamics reshaping the political party system, migration and asylum reforms, the reconfiguration of gender roles, and the new responsibilities and constraints affecting German foreign and security policy. In addition to being guest editors in this month’s edition of German Politics, Professor Lang, Wendler and Mushaben each contributed an article to the volume.

Professor Lang’s article, titled, “Gender Equality in Post-Unification Germany: Between GDR legacies and EU-Level Pressures“, explores how differences between the West German and East German gender regimes played out during and after unification. Professor Lang examines unification’s as well as the European Union’s impact on women’s economic status and the state’s role in actively promoting gender equality and women’s political participation.

Professor Wendler’s article, titled, “Recalibrating Germany’s Role in Europe: Framing Leadership as Responsibility“, digs into the ramifications that unification had on the German party system, with particular focus on the discourse between Chancellor Merkel’s CDU and the Left Party. Professor Wendler examines the debates between the two parties in regards to the Lisbon Treaty and Germany’s handling of the Eurozone Crisis as a means to analyze the normative concept of responsibility.

Professor Mushaben’s article, titled, “Wir schaffen das! Angela Merkel and the European Refugee Crisis“, examines Chancellor Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees from North Africa and the Middle East in 2015. She analyzes Merkel’s decision to turn Germany into a “welcoming culture” through the lens of German integration of former GDR citizens following unification in 1990.