AGI

Society, Culture & Politics

The AGI Society, Culture & Politics Program focuses on crucial topics within the German-American dialogue, including: demographic change, migration/integration, and aging societies; electoral politics at the national, state, and European levels, and comparative analysis of Germany and the United States; diversity within Germany, Europe, and the United States; the politics of collective memory and identity, Holocaust remembrance and reconciliation, and shifting conceptions of national identity that shape perspectives and policy responses.
Reset

The German SPD and the Curse of Corbynisation

On December 12, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party slipped to inglorious defeat in what was Britain’s third general election in four years. Labour’s worst result since 1935 leaves the party no …

The Afghanistan War: Collective Memory Formation in the United States and Germany

Introduction More than eighteen years have passed since October 2001, when U.S. forces were deployed to Afghanistan after the Taliban regime refused to extradite Osama bin Laden and shut down …

The Afghanistan War: Collective Memory Formation in the United States and Germany

More than eighteen years have passed since October 2001, when U.S. forces were deployed to Afghanistan after the Taliban regime refused to extradite Osama bin Laden and shut down Al-Qaeda …

A Farewell to Power: Germany’s Social Democratic Party After the Election of a New Party Leadership

The Social Democratic Party, Germany’s oldest democratic party which emerged from an early German labor movement, survived the challenge of communism after World War I, was forced into exile during …

Social Democracy in Search of Its Identity           

Despite untamed global capitalism and growing inequality within advanced economies, the traditional left continues to be in sharp decline. Social democratic parties lost significant support in almost all Western democracies, …

Maneuvering Around the Middle: Party Politics in 2020

In the last two weeks, four political parties in Germany have gathered at their annual conferences to start positioning themselves for the next federal election, currently scheduled for 2021. In …

The Grand Coalition’s Mid-term Review and Recent Legislation

German politics has become much more unpredictable in recent years. There have been half a dozen instances when it seemed that the rather unloved grand coalition (GroKo) would break up …

Building Diverse Communities: Toolkits for Global Cities

By 2040, one-third of Germans will have a “migration background.” Around the same time, the United States will become a majority-minority country, with immigration contributing to this demographic change. In …

The Unbroken Past: From Germany to Shanghai to San Francisco

Kurt and Jeannette Nothenberg lived comfortably in the middle class in Germany raising their only child, Rudy.  Following Kristallnacht, Kurt was arrested and sent to Buchenwald, but was later released …

The September 1952 Reparations Agreement between West Germany and Israel: The Beginning of a Remarkable Friendship

The thorny issue of reparations for war-time crimes against humanity, material losses, despoliation, and human rights abuses has dominated the political sphere in the last several months. On the international …

Witness to History: An American in Berlin for the Fall of the Wall

I think often of the good luck I had in moving to West Berlin in September 1989. The dramatic events of the months ahead were to leave memories that greatly …

Great Expectations: Germany, America, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall Thirty Years Later

As Germany commemorates the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a look back to 1989 and the expectations that surrounded that momentous event reveals some that were …