Between Continuity and Change: Ostpolitik and the Constructivist Approach Revisited

Abstract

To social constructivists, West German Ostpolitik, as implemented under the social-liberal government of Chancellor Willy Brandt in the early 1970s, is an excellent example of norms and identities influencing foreign policy. According to constructivists, Ostpolitik involves a continuous social process in which decision-makers are increasingly guided by norms such as ‘peace’, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘Europeanness’. However, constructivist analyses of Ostpolitik remain too abstract to answer the question why West German reunification policy was first put on an international sidetrack, before it subsequently took the initiative in international détente and caused national and international political commotion. Only when the constructivist emphasis on the influence of norms is linked to more traditional decision-making models of bureaucratic and government politics, and their focus on political interests, does it become clear that the answer lies in the dynamics of the continuous political struggle between Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank his collegues in the Nijmegen Working Group on International Relations, Gerry van der Kamp – Alons, Bob Lieshout, Bob Reinalda, Bertjan Verveek, Anna van der Vleuten and Angela Wigger, Gottfried Niedhart, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

John Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity (London: Routledge, 1997), pp 9–11.

Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).

Alexander Wendt, ‘Constructing International Politics’, International Security 20 (1995), pp.71–81.

Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy is What States Make of it’, International Organization 46 (1989), pp.391–425.

Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.11.

Walter Carlsnaes, ‘Foreign Policy’, in W. Carlsnaes, T. Risse and B.A. Simmons (eds.), Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage, 2002), p.339; Jeffrey Samuel Barkin, ‘Realist Constructivism’, International Studies Review 5 (2003), p.327. There are several denominations here that make more or less the same distinction. Some speak of ‘weaker’ and ‘stronger’ research programmes.

Carlsnaes, ‘Foreign Policy’, p.339; Fred Chernoff, Theory and Metatheory in International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2007), p.153.

Wendt, ‘Constructing International Politics’, pp.83–8.

Ibid., p.75.

Peter Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security (New York: Columbia University Press 1996), pp.66–8.

Martha Finnemore, National Interests and International Society (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp.24–25. Even though constitutive theory makes it impossible to distinguish any variation between independent and dependent variables, Finnemore, for example, states that it is still possible empirically to ‘bracket’ agent and structure and to provide at least a descriptive analysis of both sides of the relationship. Finnemore states that this approach may be regarded by some as something to be avoided, but could also serve ‘as a useful first step in causal analysis’. Constructivist empirical research, then, is not so much about theory testing, but rather about theory generation. For more on ‘constructivist’ methodology, see: Audie Klotz and Cecilia Lynch, Strategies for Research in Constructivist International Relations (New York: M.E. Shape, 2007).

Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, pp.334–5; Ted Hopf, ‘The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory’, International Security 23 (1998), pp.171–200.

In replying to constructivist criticism of traditional IR-theory, one of the central arguments is that constructivists may point out that neorealists and neoliberalists take actors and interests as givens instead of focusing on social interaction and the way norms influence the actor's preferences and the definition of interests; but that constructivists only seem to push the problem further back by taking the influence of unspecified norms as a given. See for example Maja Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations: The Politics of Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p.254.

Finnemore, National Interest in International Society, p.25.

Here, the subject of the continuity German foreign policy after reunification is intensively dealt with in studies that may not be constructivist per se, but do stress the impact of ideas, culture, (European) identity or historical memory. See for example: Peter Katzenstein, ‘United Germany in an Integrated Europe’, in by P.J. Katzenstein (ed.) Tamed Power: Germany in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Thomas Banchoff, The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics and Foreign Policy, 1945–1995 (AnnArbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press 1999); or Volker Rittberger, German Foreign Policy since Unification: Theories and Case Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001). In the latest addition to this body work, Hanns Maull and others try to investigate the persistence of the German foreign policy ‘culture of reticence’ even though tensions and contradictions have become increasingly apparent over the last years. See Hanns Maull, Germany's Uncertain Power. Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp.1–9.

Stefano Guzzini, ‘Constructivism and the Role of International Institutions in International Relations’, COPRI Working Papers 38 (2000), p.5.

See for example Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart, Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008).

Gottfried Niedhart, ‘Zustimmung und Irritationen: Die Westmächte und die deutsche Ostpolitik 1969/70’, in U. Lehmkuhl, C.A. Wurmand and H. Zimmermann (eds.) Deutschland, Großbritannien, Amerika. Politik, Gesellschaft und Internationale Geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2003).

Gottfried Niedhart, ‘The Federal Republic's Ostpolitik and the United States: Initiatives and Constraints’, in K. Burk and M. Stokes (eds.), The United States and the European Alliance since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Robert Dalek, Nixon and Kissinger. Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), pp.214–15.

‘On the Road to a New Reality’, Time Magazine, 4 Jan. 1971.

The 1972 elections followed after a failed attempt by the opposition to replace Brandt by a vote of no confidence. The campaign of the Social Democrats focused completely on the success of Brandt's Ostpolitik. The agreement on the German–German Basic Treaty was conveniently announced during the last two weeks of the campaign. See Egon Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit (München: Siedler, 1996), pp.397–8, 423.

By taking the German borders as of 31 Dec. 1937 as a starting point for future negotiations on reunification, the Bonn government most notably did not recognise the Oder–Neisse line as Poland's post-war Western border.

See for example: Charles Williams, Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany (London: Abacus, 2003), p.499.

See Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit.

Gottfried Niedhart, ‘Revisionistische Elemente und die Initiierung friedlichen Wandels in der neuen Ostpolitik 1969–1974’, Deutschland Archiv 39 (2006), pp.448–54.

Karl Cordell and Stefan Wolff, ‘A Foreign Policy Analysis of the German Question. Ostpolitik Revisited’, Foreign Policy Analysis 2 (2007), pp.255–71; Daniela Engelmann-Martin, ‘Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy: The Social Construction of Ostpolitik and Continued Multilateralism after Reunification’, Paper prepared for the 4th Pan-European International Relations Conference, 8–10 Sept. 2001, Canterbury; Thomas Risse, Daniela Engelmann-Martin. Hans-Joachim Knopf and Klaus Rocher, ‘To Euro or not to Euro? The EMU and Identity Politics in the European Union’, European Journal of International Relations 5 (1999), pp.147–87.

Cordell and Wolff, ‘A Foreign Policy Analysis of the German Question’, p.255. See also Karl Cordell and Stefan Wolff, German's Foreign Policy towards Poland and the Czech Republic. Ostpolitik Revisited (London: Routledge, 2005).

Engelmann-Martin, ‘Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy’, p.12.

Robert Lieshout, The Struggle for the Organization of Europe (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1999), pp.52–4. Or see Hans-Peter Schwartz, Adenauer. Der Staatsmann 1952–1967 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991).

Engelmann-Martin, ‘Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy: The Social Construction of Ostpolitik and Continued Multilateralism after Reunification’, p.7; Cordell and Wolff, ‘A Foreign Policy Analysis’, p.256.

Cordell and Wolff, ‘A Foreign Policy Analysis’, p.263.

James March and J.P. Olson, ‘The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders’, International Organization 52 (1998), pp.943–69.

Ibid., pp.949–51.

March and Olson use ‘norms’ and ‘identities’ more or less interchangeably, as do most constructivists.

March and Olson, ‘The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders’, pp.949–2.

Risse et al., ‘To Euro or not to Euro?’, pp.158–9; Daniela Engelmann-Martin, Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy: The Social Construction of Ostpolitik and European Monetary Union (Florence: EUI, 2002).

Risse et al., ‘To Euro or not to Euro?’, p.158.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Engelmann-Martin, ‘Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy’, p.10.

Gordon Drummond, The German Social Democrats in Opposition 1949–1960 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982), pp.242–80.

Engelmann-Martin, ‘Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy’, p.12.

See for example Benno Zündorf, Die Ostverträge (München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 1989); Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit.

Initially, the Soviet Union had insisted that the European borders should be deemed ‘unchangeable’.

Engelmann-Martin, ‘Identity, Norms and German Foreign Policy’, p.11.

Willy Brandt, ’Konrad Adenauer. Ein schwieriges Erbe für die deutsche Politik’, in D. Blumenwitz et al. (eds.), Konrad Adenauer und seine Zeit (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags Anstalt, 1976), p.106.

Even though the small liberal FDP played an important role in the coming about of the Brandt government and the implementation of Ostpolitik, I focus on the two major West German political parties, without whose participation no majority government would be possible. Another major argument for focusing on either CDU/CSU or SPD is that either party always supplies the Chancellor, who plays a crucial role in West German foreign policy (also see John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know. Rethinking Cold war History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp.149–51).

Ibid., pp.149–51.

Arnulf Baring, Außenpolitik in Adenauer's Kanzlerdemokratie. Bonns Beitrag zur europäischen Verteidigungsgemeinschaf (München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1969).

Graham Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Addison-Wesley, 2nd edition, 1999); Morton Halperin, P.A. Clapp and A. Kanter, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2nd revised edition, 2006).

Halperin et al., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, p.27.

Robert Lieshout, Between Anarchy and Hierarchy: A Theory of International Politics and Foreign Policy (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1995), pp.144–7.

It is important to note here that ideas not only play a role in explaining continuity by acting as a persistent norm that in the end will always give way to political interests. The less successful an existing norm becomes over time, the more alternative coalitions are encouraged to create new ones and challenge the dominant coalition.

Allison, The Essence of Decision, p.145.

Laura Neack, Jeanne Hey and Patrick Haney, Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in its Second Generation (Riverside, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1995), pp.255–7.

Here it does not matter if the members of the dominant coalition are to blame or that external factors have contributed to the failure of a certain foreign policy.

See for example Frank Bösch, Die Adenauer-CDU/CSU. Gründung, Aufstieg und Krise einer Erfolgspartei (München: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001).

It is contained in paragraph 7, section 3 of the so-called Deutschlandvertrag of 1955 that rearranged the relationship between the Federal Republic and the former western occupation powers and that made it possible for West Germany to regain almost full sovereignty, with the exception of Berlin and the pending all-German peace treaty that was still to conclude with the Soviet Union.

Hans-Peter Schwarz, Adenauer: Der Staatsmann 1952–1967 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991).

See for example Thorsten Opelland, Gerhard Schroeder (1910–1989): Politik zwischen Staat, Partei und Konfession (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 2002).

For recent studies on the influence of the Heimatvertriebenen on West German politics see Pertti Ahonen, After the Expulsion: West Germany and Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Matthias Stickler, Ostdeutsch Heisst Gesamtdeutsch. Organization, Selbstverständnis und Heimatspolitische Zielsetzungen der deutschen Vertriebenenverbände 1949–1972 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 2004).

Karl-Theodor zu Gutenberg is the grandfather of the current German minister for economic affairs, who was named after him.

Reiner Barzel, Ein gewagtes Leben, Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Hohenheim Verlag, 2000), pp.221–4.

Zbigniew Brezinski, ‘Deutsche Einheit durch europäische Verflechtung’, in Theo Sommer (ed.), Denken an Deutschland (Hamburg: Nannen Verlag, 1996), p.99.

Philip Gassert, Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Kanzler zwischen den Zeiten (München: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2006), p.19.

See Peter Merseburger, Der schwierige Deutsche. Kurt Schumacher. Eine Biographie (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1995).

Peter Merseburger, Willy Brandt. Visionär und Realist (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2002), pp.464–5.

See Christoph Meyer, Herbert Wehner (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2006).

Gassert, Kurt Georg Kiesinger. Kanzler zwischen den Zeiten, pp.660–81.

‘Anständig auseinander. Trouble is my business. Sinnspruch im Arbeitszimmer von Conrad Ahlers’, Der Spiegel, 25 Aug. 1969.

Daniel Hoffman, ‘Verdächtige Eile. Der Weg zur Koalition aus SPD und FDP nach der Bundestagswahl vom 28. September 1969’, Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 48 (2002), pp.515–64.

Willy Brandt, ‘Konrad Adenauer. Ein schwieriges Erbe für die deutsche Politik’, p.106.

The opposition was only two votes short of being able to install a new Chancellor. Only afterwards did it become clear that at least one vote of the Christian Democrats was ‘bought’ by the East German secret service, conducting ‘Operation Brandtschutz’.