Abstract
Collective memory, comprising the ways in which the past is perceived, shared, and constructed through daily interactions, ceremonial, or negative manifestations such as taboo, has become a focus for scholarship that crosses disciplinary boundaries within the humanities and social sciences. This chapter points to some potential new avenues for memory research using insights from different disciplines. Specifically, it draws on political science approaches, together with those from cognate social science disciplines, to examine ways in which current memory research on the GDR might usefully be supplemented. Adopting an alternative perspective on some of the common assumptions and themes in GDR memory research helps us to reassess the analytical priorities of the field and to explore alternative research methodologies and agendas. It is well beyond the scope of this chapter to present a comprehensive catalogue of political science approaches to the challenge of remembering the GDR; themes have therefore been selected to highlight different ways in which a political science perspective may inform contemporary debates in GDR memory research. These include the temporal perspective of political science; the significance of memory for society; the construction of memory collectives; the contextualisa-tion of memory in identity formation; and constructions of victimhood.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ahbe, T. (2005) Ostalgie. Zum Umgang mit der DDR-Vergangenheit in den 1990er Jahren (Berlin: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildungsarbeit Berlin).
Arthur, W. B. (1989) ‘Competing Technologies and Lock-In by Historical Small Events’, Economic Journal, 99 (March), 116–31.
Arthur, W. B. (1994) Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press), 1–12.
Beattie, A. H. (2008) Playing Politics with History. The Bundestag Enquiries into East Germany (New York: Berghahn).
Blumer, H. [1969] (1986) Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
Collier, R. B. and D. Collier (1991) Shaping the Political Agenda: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Confino, A. and P. Fritzsche (eds) (2002) Work of Memory: New Directions in the Study of German Memory and Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press).
Connerton, P. (2008) ‘Seven Types of Forgetting’, Memory Studies, 1 (1), 59–71.
Danyel, J. (ed.) (1995) Die Geteilte Vergangenheit: Zum Umgang Mit Nationalsozialismus und Widerstand in Beiden Deutschen Staaten (Berlin: Akademie).
David, P. A. (1985) ‘Clio and the Economics of QWERTY’, American Economic Review, 75 (2), 332–7.
Hall, P. (1993) ‘Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain’, Comparative Politics, 25 (3), 275–96.
Herbert, U. (1998) ‘Drei deutsche Vergangenheiten: Über den Umgang mit der deutschen Zeitgeschichte’ in A. Bauerkämper, M. Sabrow and B. Stöver (eds) Doppelte Zeitgeschichte: Deutsch-deutsche Beziehungen 1945–1990 (Bonn: Dietz).
Herf, J. (1997) Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).
Hogwood, P. (2002) ‘“Red is for Love …”: citizens as consumers in East Germany’ in J. Grix and P. Cooke (eds) East German Distinctiveness in a Unified Germany (Edgbaston: University of Birmingham Press).
Hogwood, P. (2011) ‘The ‘Ostalgia’ Trap? Ostalgia and the Ambivalence of Inner German Relations in East Germany’s Path to ‘Normality’’, Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual Conference, London, 19–21 April 2011.
Hogwood, P. (2012) ‘Political (Re)Learning and Consumer Culture in Post-GDR Society’, German Politics, 21 (1), 1–16.
Ingrao, B. and G. Israel (1990) The Invisible Hand: Economic Equilibrium in the History of Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
John, P., G. Smith and G. Stoker (2009) ‘Nudge Nudge, Think Think. Two Strategies for Changing Civic Behaviour’, The Political Quarterly, 80 (3), 361–70.
Jolink, A. and J. J. Vromen (2001) ‘Path Dependence in Scientific Evolution’ in P. Garrouste and S. Ioannides (eds) Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).
Kattago, S. (2001) Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity (Westport: Praeger).
Levi, M. (2009) ‘Reconsiderations of Rational Choice in Comparative and Historical Analysis’ in M. I. Lichbach and A. S. Zuckerman (eds) Comparative Politics. Rationality, Culture and Structure, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Linz, J. J. and A. Stepan (1996) Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MA: Johns Hopkins University Press).
Mackat, A. (2007) Das Deutsch-Deutsche Geheimnis (Berlin: Superillu).
Maier, C. S. (1988) The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust and German National Identity (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).
McFalls, L. (1999) ‘Eastern Germany Transformed. From Postcommunist to Late Capitalist Political Culture’, German Politics and Society, 17 (2), 1–24.
Mischler, W. and R. Rose (2002) ‘Learning and Re-Learning Regime Support: the Dynamics of Post-Communist Regimes’, European Journal of Political Research, 41, 5–6.
Neller, K. (2006) DDR-Nostalgie. Dimensionen der Orientierungen der Ostdeutschen gegenüber der ehemaligen DDR, ihre Ursachen und politischen Konnonationen (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften).
Pierson, P. (2004) Politics in Time. History, Institutions and Social Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Plasser, F. and A. Pribersky (eds) (1996) Political Culture in East Central Europe (Aldershot: Avebury).
Ross, C. (2002) The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR (London: Hodder Arnold).
Ross, M. H. (2009) ‘Culture in Comparative Political Analysis’ in M. I. Lichbach and A. S. Zuckerman (eds) Comparative Politics. Rationality, Culture and Structure, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Sa’adah, A. (1998) Germany’s Second Chance: Trust, Justice and Democratization (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Schulze, R. (2004) ‘Review Article. Memory in German History: Fragmented Noises or Meaningful Voices of the Past?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 39 (4), 637–48.
Smith, J. and P. Jehlička (2007) ‘Stories Around Food, Politics and Change in Poland and the Czech Republic’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32, 395–410.
Stefes, C. (2010) ‘Bypassing Germany’s Reformstau: The Remarkable Rise of Renewable Energy’, German Politics, 19 (2), 148–63.
Todorova, M. (2010) ‘From Utopia to Propaganda and Back’ in M. Todorova and Z. Gille (eds) Post-Communist Nostalgia (New York: Berghahn).
Twark, J. E. (2007) Humor, Satire and Identity. Eastern German Literature in the 1990s (Berlin: de Gruyter).
Welzer, H., S. Moller and K. Tschuggnall (2002) ‘Opa war kein Nazi’: Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familengedächtnis (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer).
Wendt, A. (1999) Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Winter, J. (2000) ‘The Generation of Memory. Reflections on the Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute (Washington, DC), 27, 69–92.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Patricia Hogwood
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hogwood, P. (2013). Selective Memory: Channelling the Past in Post-GDR Society. In: Saunders, A., Pinfold, D. (eds) Remembering and Rethinking the GDR. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137292094_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137292094_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-34792-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-29209-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)