Political Culture in East Germany. Local Democratisation and Participation before, during and after 1989/90

Anja Schröter (until July 2019)
Completed Research project

Funded by the Leibniz Association as part of the Leibniz Competition, 2016-2019

This project focused on the creation of small, restricted public spheres and their significance for the development of dialogue- and consensus-orientated forms of civil participation and politics in East Germany. The hypothesis is that these forms of politics were to be found on the level of everyday spheres of communication even before 1989 and that they led to hidden changes in attitude and a certain re-politicisation in parts of the population, which subsequently proved formative for how the revolution in 1989 played out and the way in which a peculiarly East German understanding of politics developed.

The project considered small ‘societal spheres’ found at the base of the official organisational realm and their links to nationwide discourses on the basis of archive material and oral history interviews in order to examine the emergence of new spheres of communication, the politicisation of existing spheres and their dynamics and developments in a long-term perspective beyond the system change.

 

Forschung

Political Culture in East Germany. Local Democratisation and Participation before, during and after 1989/90

Anja Schröter (until July 2019)
Completed Research project

Funded by the Leibniz Association as part of the Leibniz Competition, 2016-2019

This project focused on the creation of small, restricted public spheres and their significance for the development of dialogue- and consensus-orientated forms of civil participation and politics in East Germany. The hypothesis is that these forms of politics were to be found on the level of everyday spheres of communication even before 1989 and that they led to hidden changes in attitude and a certain re-politicisation in parts of the population, which subsequently proved formative for how the revolution in 1989 played out and the way in which a peculiarly East German understanding of politics developed.

The project considered small ‘societal spheres’ found at the base of the official organisational realm and their links to nationwide discourses on the basis of archive material and oral history interviews in order to examine the emergence of new spheres of communication, the politicisation of existing spheres and their dynamics and developments in a long-term perspective beyond the system change.

 

Forschung