German Politics and Society

Since 2005 most immigrants to Germany have been required to complete integration courses that include language instruction and a concluding orientation course on German history, the political system, and society. The state-approved textbooks for the orientation course are an instructive instance of state-sanctioned discourse about national belonging, immigration, and integration. This article applies a critical perspective to four such textbooks guided by the following questions: How are Germanness and national belonging portrayed? What understandings of immigration and immigrants, cultural differences, and integration do these texts present, and how do these compare to official, academic, and popular understandings?

When considering the far-right populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and its success in the territories of the former GDR, existing academic approaches rarely consider the memory cultural implications and multifaceted affective underpinnings of the party's maneuvering. Aiming to fill this gap, this article develops an approach that is geared toward understanding the affective dimension of the AfD's populist messages and critically engages with Germany's hegemonic post-reunification memory culture. Subsequently, an analysis of social media material stemming from the AfD Thuringia's 2019 state election campaign under the slogan “Wende 2.0” illustrates how the party articulates a multifaceted, alternative affective subject position. Such a counter-hegemonic way of feeling Eastern German constitutes itself against the state-sponsored memory culture and the affective governance that characterize reunified Germany.

In many Western democracies, the intra-party selection of party leaders has evolved to become significantly more democratic. In the case of Germany, a country known for its extraordinarily stable and coronation-like recruitment conditions, the recent changes to the Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party will be described as experimental catch-up democratization. This article focuses on the input dimension of intra-party democracy (IPD). It is based upon research that compares longitudinal data from 2017 to 2022 (when the most significant changes took place) and from 1990 to 2016 (to reveal the traditional selection patterns). The analysis includes the indicators of (more) self-candidacies, (intensified) competition among candidates, decentralization, and (greater) inclusion of the rank-and-file members. By conducting a detailed investigation of these two parties, this article contributes to the international debates on IPD and leadership selection change.

Baden-Württemberg has positioned itself as a leader in German efforts to recognize the colonial past and pursue reconciliation with Namibia. Restitution projects in the 2010s shaped the Namibia Initiative Baden-Württemberg. My analysis of Landtag documents reveals a gradual transformation of this debate about German colonial responsibility and adoption of calls for Aufarbeitung. State-level arguments reflected broader national and European discussions about restitution while emphasizing the influence of local initiatives. Following the 2019 restitution of Hendrik Witbooi's possessions, Baden-Württemberg's cultural ministry and most political parties embraced Aufarbeitung as part of future work at state institutions. This close examination of Baden-Württemberg's initiative could serve as a model for other German Länder as they work toward decolonizing their institutions.

Joyce Marie Mushaben, What Remains? The Dialectical Identities of Eastern Germans (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Ruud Koopmans, Die Asyl-Lotterie: Eine Bilanz der Flüchtlingspolitik von 2015 bis zum Ukraine-Krieg (München: C.H. Beck, 2023)

Jane Freeland, Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence in Divided Berlin, 1968–2002 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)

Florian Grotz and Wolfgang Schroeder, The Political System of Germany (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Paul Carls, Multiculturalism and the Nation in Germany: A Study in Moral Conflict (New York: Routledge, 2023)

Julia E. Ault, Saving Nature Under Socialism: Transnational Environmentalism in East Germany, 1968–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)