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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2009

A. James McAdams
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
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Summary

This study began as a doctoral dissertation about the way in which the political character of communist regimes is defined by their environments. At the time, I was particularly interested in analyzing the steps that such regimes typically take to shore up their citizens' tenuous loyalties in the face of unwanted contacts with the nonsocialist world, and East Germany seemed the perfect example of this kind of defensive reaction to the threat of capitalist ‘contamination.’ Its leaders had practically trembled at the idea of resuscitated ties between the populations of the two Germanies, and of course, East Berlin eventually became famous for its opposition to the Soviet detente initiatives of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

However, as this study progressed, I became aware that there was much more to East Germany's actions than simply a mechanical response to the changes surrounding the country. As the regime matured, its leadership seemed to operate according to a kind of progressive learning curve, no longer merely responding to the changes around it, but slowly acquiring a limited ability to control its setting and even to set agendas for the country's future. This was important for at least two reasons: first, because it showed that the relationship between leadership and environment can go both ways, as states learn to manage their surroundings as well as be managed by them; and second, because it suggested that many of the old truisms associated with East Germany – that the state was a weak and largely deferential satellite of the Soviet Union, that its leaders feared any but economic contacts with the West – were at best overly simplistic ways of coming to grips with an ever more complex situation.

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Chapter
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East Germany and Detente
Building Authority after the Wall
, pp. ix - xii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1985

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  • Preface
  • A. James McAdams, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book: East Germany and Detente
  • Online publication: 17 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521874.001
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  • Preface
  • A. James McAdams, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book: East Germany and Detente
  • Online publication: 17 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521874.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • A. James McAdams, Princeton University, New Jersey
  • Book: East Germany and Detente
  • Online publication: 17 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521874.001
Available formats
×