German Politics and Society

Germany has reduced its emissions of greenhouse gases more than almost any other industrialized democracy and is exceeding its ambitious Kyoto commitment. Hence, it is commonly portrayed as a climate-policy success story, but the situation is actually much more complex. Generalizing Germany's per-capita emissions to all countries or its emissions reductions to all industrialized democracies would still very likely produce more than a two-degree rise in global temperature. Moreover, analyzing the German country-case into eleven subcases shows that it is a mixture of relative successes and failures. This analysis leads to three main conclusions. First, high relative performance and high environmental damage can coexist. Second, we should see national cases in a differentiated way and not only in terms of their aggregate performances. Third, researchers on climate policies should more often begin with outcomes, work backward to policies, and be prepared for some surprises. Ironically, the most effective government interventions may not be explicit climate policies, such as the economic transformation of eastern Germany. Moreover, the lack of policy-making in certain areas may undercut progress made elsewhere, including unregulated increases in car travel, road freight, and electricity consumption. Research on climate and environmental policies should focus on somewhat different areas of government intervention and ask different questions.

German political culture has been undergoing gradual but significant changes since unification. Military engagements in combat missions, the introduction of a professional army, and a remarkable loss of recent historical knowledge mostly within the younger generations are hallmarks of the new millennium. Extensive education about the Holocaust is still prevalent and there is a strong continuity of attitudes and orientations toward the Nazi era and the Holocaust reaching back to the 1980s. Nevertheless, a lack of knowledge about history-not only the World War II period, but also about East and West Germany-in the age group of people under thirty is staggering. The fading away of the generation of victims who are the last ones to tell the story of persecution during the Holocaust and a parallel rise of new actors and technologies, present challenges to the educational system and the current political culture of Germany.

Despite several breakthroughs that indicate radical right parties' significant electoral potential, they remain highly volatile players in both Poland and eastern Germany. This is puzzling because radical right competitors can benefit from favorable politico-cultural conditions shaped by postcommunist legacies. The electoral markets in Poland and the eastern German Länder show low levels of affective party identification and low levels of political trust in mainstream parties and government institutions. Most importantly, there is a sizeable, yet largely unrepresented segment of voters who share salient counter-cosmopolitan preferences. They point to a “silent counterrevolution“ against globalization and cosmopolitan value change that displays substantive affinities to radical right ideology. Offering a transborder regional comparison of the four most relevant radical right parties and their conditions for electoral mobilization in Poland and eastern Germany, this article argues that the radical right's crossnational volatility-and often underperformance-in elections is mainly caused by internal supply side factors. They range from organizational deficiencies, leadership issues, and internal feuds, to strategic failures and a lack of democratic responsiveness. In turn, the disequilibrium between counter-cosmopolitan demand and its political representation is likely to be reduced if radical right competitors become more effective agents of electoral mobilization-or new, better organized ones emerge.

Alexander von Plato, Almut Leh and Christopher Thonfeld, eds., Hitler’s

Slaves: Life Stories of Forced Labourers in Nazi-Occupied Europe (New York:

Berghahn Books, 2010)

Frank Biess and Robert Moeller, eds., Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies

of the Second World War in Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010)

James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shock, eds. What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011)

Reviewed by Willy Jou

James Bohman, Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007)

Reviewed by by Conrad King

Ritter, Gerhard, The Price of German Unity. Reunification and the Crisis of the Welfare State, translated by Richard Deveson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)

Reviewed by Joyce M. Mushaben

Michaela Hoenicke Moore, Know Your Enemy. The American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Reviewed by John Bendix

Elena Mancini, Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Reviewed by Leila J. Rupp

Paul Betts, Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Reviewed by Charles S. Maier