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

Post-Unification German Studies: Momentum Gained or Lost?

Carl Bildt, until recently Sweden’s foreign minister, told Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in 2003: “For a generation Americans and Europeans shared the same date: 1945. A whole …

Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation

Now available in paperback, AGI Society, Culture & Politics Director Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman’s book, “Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity,” highlights Germany as a model for …

Can Germany Reconcile the Western Balkans?

In April 2013, Serbia and Kosovo signed an agreement that enabled a rapprochement between the two sides, including an understanding that they will not block each other’s bid for European …

Toward Historical Reconciliation in East Asia: Emergence and Expansion of Transnational Networks

Pragmatic Necessity to Grapple with History Problems East Asian countries are now facing a situation often called the “Asian paradox,” in which deepening economic interdependence coexists with historical and territorial …

The Day the Berlin Wall Really Fell

Contrary to popular lore, the Berlin Wall did not fall on November 9, 1989. Nor did it fall in Berlin. It fell on October 9 some 120 miles away, in …

The Katyn Massacre: Half a Century of Lies and the Search for Truth

Borrowing institutionally from the German-Polish case, Polish-Russian reconciliation had been making small, tentative steps until the crisis in and over Ukraine. There is some effort to continue civil society interaction, …

Mars vs. Mercury: Germany, America, and the Global Order

Germany and America: Two Reluctant Pivotal Powers Germany and the United States rank as the two most influential and powerful Western liberal nations in a world challenged by the rise …

2009 and 2014: Reflections

Time flies.  I am struck by how recent the events of the twentieth anniversary of the Mauerfall feel.  A rainy, but magical, memory. At first blush, 2009 seems a more …

After the Wall: Survivors’ Expectations

There were many expectations when the Wall came down. Not least among them that Holocaust survivors living in Eastern Europe would finally receive payments from Germany for their suffering. But …

November 1989

Like December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001, November 9, 1989, is one of those dates remembered in freeze frame.  But it’s the rare exception that most …

Broken Berlin Wall, by Tom Block

Visitors to AGI may be familiar with Tom Block’s art installation, “Broken Berlin Wall.”  The artwork will continue to be on display for the 25th anniversary of the fall of …

The Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program

The Robert Bosch Foundation and Cultural Vistas invite US professionals to apply for the 2015-2016 Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program. Bosch Fellows work as consultants in their field of expertise …