Beschreibung
In this first full-length U.S. study of German foreign
policy since unification, Bach explores how different understandings of
national identity influence and shape policy, in particular, the decision
to send German troops to join the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. Placing
the German debates in social and historical context, he identifies major
narratives within the German foreign policy community from which emerge
divergent interpretations of national identity. Through a discursive
analysis of parliamentary debates, Bach highlights how the emergence of a
„normal“ foreign policy is caught between competing understandings of
the nation and the ambiguous role of the state, as both increasingly
confront the uncertain trajectories of integration and globalization.
Mixing theoretical and empirical analyses, Bach charts the tension between
universalism and particularism in German foreign policy and national
identity from Germany’s first unification to its most recent. The
implications reach beyond Germany to shed light on the paradoxical
relationship between politics, policy and identity amidst changing
conceptions of state, nation, and the international system.
„An excellent piece of work: sophisticated, consistently
well-informed, well organized and clearly written. It moves the debate on
sovereignty and national identity into a distictly different key than
that defined by such outstanding authors as David Campbell: the context
provided by significant historiographical conflicts over the meaning and
direction of foreign policy. That this is done for the German case,
rather than the by now all too familiar American one, also shifts the
debate away from current ground.“ (John Agnew, Professor of Geography,
University of California, Los Angeles)
About the Author: Jonathan P. G. Bach is currently a Post
Doctoral Fellow at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University.
He received his Ph. D. in political science from the Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.