Associated PhD Project

This PhD project investigates the process of the merging of Bündnis 90 [Alliance 90] and the Green Party in a long-term perspective from 1989 to 1998, when Bündnis 90/Die Grünen joined the first red-green federal government in Germany. The project investigates how two different political organisations with their own histories, structures, social and cultural backgrounds and political concepts tried to organise a process of merging on fair and balanced terms. One thesis of the project is that they, to the greatest extent, failed complying this demand.

Today the term ‘Bündnis 90’, being part of the name ‘Bündnis 90/Die Grünen’, does not seem to be important at all. Not solely for reasons of laziness are they generally just called ‘the greens’, not only because of their age most of the former famous Bündnis 90-represantatives play no important roles in the party. They could only put little issues on the party’s agenda. Since the nineteen nineties the political success of the Party Bündnis 90/Die Grünen is mostly based on their electoral results in west Germany. However in the east of Germany the party is politically and structurally still weaker.

Thus this project contributes to the field of political culture research in post-communist eastern Germany. It examines how one part of the avantgarde of the eastern German democracy movement joined the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. Therefore the project is focussing on the different political levels where the process of the merging was organised: the parliamentary faction in the Bundestag, the executives of the organisations and a few examples of local party organisations.