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 Legacy of the Elysee Treaty

In a conversation with his ambassador to France, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer once impatiently remarked that Germans needed to be more closely bound to France for a very simple reason: to …

AGI President Jack Janes in The Economist

With elections in Lower Saxony approaching on January 20th, Germany’s political parties will be looking towards the results as a gauge for what could be expected when all Germans take …

The Potential Impact of German Elections

As Germany enters a national election year, the decisions made by voters when they reach the polls in November could have major effects not only for Germany, but for Europe …

Elections in Lower Saxony: messages, messengers and members

The upcoming state election in Lower Saxony on January 20 is the opening note of Germany’s political campaign year. Each of the political parties are positioning themselves to interpret the …

A Brief History of the Evolution of Gun Control in the U.S.

Gun control is once again an important topic of conversation in the U.S. after the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT, with calls for further reforms. Past experience has shown that …

Thirty Years of Bundestag Presence: A Tally of the Greens’ Impact on the Federal Republic of Germany’s Political Life and Public Culture

German-American Issues 14 As we look to the German federal elections in 2013, AGI’s newest publication considers three decades of a changing political landscape with the emergence of the Green …

Islam in Germany Revisited: The Circumcision Debate

The notorious silence of the relatively uneventful summer this year in Germany was suddenly disrupted by a heated debate regarding the abolishment of circumcision—ignited by a May 2012 court ruling. …

Germany’s Circumcision Debate: A Personal Reflection

I never imagined that my existence as a Jew in Germany would be challenged by an advertisement in the Berlin U-Bahn. But there it was, staring at me on the …

Preventing the Proliferation of Pain

The massacre of children and their teachers in Connecticut has once again generated two questions with no real answers: why did this horrific event happen and how is another preventable? …

An Exercise in External Reconciliation

With the EU accepting its Peace and Reconciliation Nobel Prize, it is worth a look at an example of the EU using its reconciliation experience, specifically  in the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This essay …

Who Can Lead the Change?

“Comfort women,” the Dokdo/Takeshima islands, and the Yasukuni shrine are the Achilles’ heel of South Korean-Japanese relations. Recurring for decades, the clashes over history issues this year have taken a …

Merkel’s Political Strategy

In this recent commentary originally published by Süddeutsche Zeitung, Prof. Dr. Karl-Rudolf Korte compares the election strategies of President Obama as he sought a second term and Chancellor Merkel as …