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Transition to Democracy—or Anschluss? The Two Germanies and Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Klaus von Beyme
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Extract

TO ANALYSE THE GERMAN QUESTION IN THIS TRANSITORY moment is risky in several respects. The German novelist Martin Walser who underwent a metamorphosis from a fellow traveller of the communists to a German nationalist put it bluntly: ‘He who does not get below his intellectual level when talking about Germany has no intellectual level at all.’ The topic has pitfalls everywhere:

— it is deeply connected with emotions, whatever the view of the writer;

— it is in flux, ‘words are already out of date in your mouth’ as a cynic put it. The increasing number of actors who claim to have a say in the German unification process makes prognosis almost impossible;

— scientific analysis of this unique event lacks concepts. Transition to democracy in a highly penetrated system does not follow the established rules of this branch of knowledge.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1990 , pp. 170 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1990

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References

1 ‘Ende des Kommunismus—und was nun?’, Zeit-Symposium, Die Zeit, 29 December 1989, pp. 1–14, at p. 13.

2 op. cit., p. 1.

3 Rustow, D. A., ‘Transition to Democracy’, Comparative Politics 1970, p, 346.Google Scholar

4 Przeworski, Adam, ‘Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy’ in O’Donnell, Guillermo et al. (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983, Vol. 3, pp. 337–63.Google Scholar

5 von Beyme, Klaus, Economics and Politics within Socialist System. A Comparative and Developmental Approach, New York, Praeger, 1982 (German edition 1975), p. 445.Google Scholar

6 BVerfGE 36, 1/26.

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8 Die Zeit, 29 December 1989, p. 2, col. 5.

9 Ibid., p. 1, col. 3.

10 Philippe C. Schmitter in: O’Donnell et al., op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 5

11 von Beyme, Klaus, Vom Faschismus zur Entwicklungsdiktatur. Machtelite und Opposition in Spanien, Munich, Piper, 1971, pp. 123 ff.Google Scholar

12 MEW (Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels), Vol. 21, p. 176.

13 Frankfurter Allgmeine Zeitung, 14 February 1990, p. 16.

14 Gordon Craig, A., ‘Zu gross für Europa? Der amerikanische Historiker Gordon A. Craig über ein wiedervereinigtes Deutschland’, Der Spiegel, 46, 1989, pp. 183–87.Google Scholar