Political Issues Under Debate. On the Meaning and Purpose of a Series of Political Science Lectures on Contemporary History

Abstract

The new lecture series, “Controversial Political Issues from the Perspective of Contemporary History” is in principle designed to be given over the course of many semesters. The first 30 lectures under this title were held at the University of Mannheim from the summer of 2004 until 2009. They were repeated in updated form in Frankfurt/Main and have been supplemented by 20 new lectures to date. All the lectures have until now been published in German in four volumes with the title Politische Streitfragen, and in English in 2015 as “Political Issues Under Debate”. This introduction provides an explanation of the general basic nature of the lecture, the purpose of which is to determine which political issues under debate are selected.

Political science is regarded as being the study of politics, which while it cannot really be value-neutral and value-free should be highly cautious in its expression of political value judgements and the use of a strongly value-loaded and emotional language. To this extent, political recommendations can be made, but should be expressly identified as such, so that the analysis of the past and the prognosis regarding the possible and probable future on the one hand, and normative statements on the other, remain clearly distinct from one another. Furthermore, attention should be drawn to the political implications of the respective selection of subjects, methods and results of the analysis and the synthesis of its insights. The study of contemporary history is understood as being an essential branch of political science.

Contemporary history as a history that stretches into the future is understood in this lecture as being the global history of the age of the gradually spreading concept of sovereignty of the people, namely during the three time periods of the “long century” from 1776/1789 to 1917, the “short century” from 1917 to 1991 and the new century that began in 1991. In this lecture, universal democracy, i.e. the sovereignty of the people, and as a fundamental theme its development into a constitutional, representative, liberal and social democracy, along with its disputes with competing forms of rule, is regarded as a political project of our time that in many respects remains uncompleted.

Furthermore, the relationship between the lecture, its elaboration in writing and the intended communication between the person giving the lecture and its listeners and readers is described. The criteria used to select political conflicts that harbour the potential for violence and war for the analysis given in the lecture are then presented with a view to the chances of cooperation in international society, and against the background of the tradition of the research focus on conflict and cooperation structures in Eastern Europe.