All abstracts

Wolfgang Fach / Yana Milev

Nach dem Krieg?, 8-29

The idea of a „war to end all wars“ is nothing but fiction and swindle. This we had to learn the hard way. Hence experience has given rise to hope for another kind of final turn to the better – a peace to end all wars. It was Immanuel Kant who transformed this vague idea of „eternal peace“ into a coherent concept. According to him, peaceful infinity is possible only in a world of republican states. If people all over the world had a say in the decision to wage war, military encounters would have to disappear for the simple reason that those who opted for war would to bear its costs. Hobbes and Hegel thought differently. According to them, wars have to be reckoned with as long as societies come in the form of states. In states, any number of reasons can serve for governments to attack each other. To put it differently, warmongering is logically contingent on state sovereignty. But what about the victims of this logic, the very men who are supposed not to be tricked into bearing arms? From hindsight we can say they have been a disappointment – war after war, governments have succeeded in fabricating widespread support. Hence Herbert Spencer’s radical idea to reduce state power to a war-disabling minimum could not come as a surprise. No state, no war – this equation has fuelled pacifism ever since. As it turned out, weak states are not only too weak to wage war abroad, but also to secure peace at home. „Failing states“ beget „new wars“. It is Hobbes – in reverse.

Michael Riekenberg

Of vague war and vague peace in Argentina′s desert, 1775–1880, 30-48

This article addresses the relationship between war and peace in the frontier of the La Plata region during the period between circa 1775 and 1880. Like other frontier spaces in Spanish-America during this period, the La Plata region constituted a type of open violent space, lacking distinct periods of war during an era of apparently continuous, war-like power relations. Under these circumstances, “post-war order” was an undefined idea. Instead, over decades “war” and “peace” co-existed under various forms of local political orders. These systems were contentious and contested, they were ambiguous, and they competed with other political endeavours, which were conceptualised in hegemonic terms, bringing state-centric ideas of political systems into the local arena. These orders shall be the focus of this analysis.

Gary S. Schaal / Claudia Ritzi

Das Grundgesetz als umkämpfte Ordnung. Deutungsmuster in der massenmedialen Berichterstattung anlässlich der Jubiläumstage des Grundgesetzes, 101-131

The capitulation of the Nazi government on May 8th, 1945 marks the beginning of the German postwar-period, which is the subject of this article. This date is often called “Stunde Null” (“zero hour”), because it represents a new beginning for the German people after the total breakdown. As such, there remained very little on which they could build, or in which they could believe. In this situation, the “Grundgesetz” – the new German constitution – became an important symbol for the Federal Republic of Germany. We show with the help of a qualitative analysis of newspaper coverage from each of the constitution’s anniversaries that while in the beginning most people were doubtful about the Grundgesetz, it became more and more respected and is today widely appreciated. The results are theoretically positioned in the context of symbolic power and “Deutungsmacht” – the power to influence the general public’s interpretation of political institutions.

Charlotte Schubert

Die Entstehung eines politischen Mythos in Athen. Von der Tyrannis zur Demokratie, 132-169

The choice of the heroes Harmodius and Aristogeiton as the symbol of a founding myth – unencumbered by previous conflicts after the victory of Salamis in the Persian wars – represents the belief of the Athenians that tyranny was finally defeated. The Athenians declared Harmodius and Aristeigeiton as founders and ascribed them the merit of having introduced the new political order rather than Cleisthenes, the reformer, who had introduced it and who was, together with the Spartan king Cleomenes, largely responsible for the overthrow of tyranny some years before the Persian wars. After Salamis this phase was completed, the new founding fathers Harmodius and Aristogeiton were successfully established and with them the conflicts of previous decades were covered over, or in the strict sense of the word, rendered invisible – in the truest sense this is then one of the most spectacular examples of counterfactual history.

Sebastian Huhnholz / Karsten Fischer

Amnesie und Antizipation. Ein politiktheoretischer Versuch zum Problem von Nachkriegsordnungen, 49-74

In modern postwar orders (and disorders) the concept of democratic peace prescribes that losing parties remember defeat and accept blame in order to redeem themselves and receive amnesty. In addition, the winning side’s position is to be accepted as rightful, morally just, and inherently peaceable. However, the historian Reinhart Koselleck remarks that throughout history succeeding postwar transitions were creatively framed through three alternatives: first, noting down what really has happened (documentation); second, embedding war experience into larger historical frameworks in order to integrate and minimize the defeat (contextualization); and, third, denying the defeat by rewriting it (annihilation/reinterpretation). But groups who are likely to be defeated are already able to anticipate the modern constrictions on these alternatives during wartime. Our thesis is that the recent limiting of options for postwar arrangements is one key factor for both the emerging permanence of asymmetric, or so-called ‘new wars’, and the multitude of notoriously unstable postwar architectures.

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Roxana Kath

Die Negation der Niederlage, 75-100

This paper analyzes the unconventional ways in which the Romans dealt with their military setbacks. Although Rome suffered a large number of defeats these were denied in political communications or even successfully reinterpreted as victories. This denial of defeats was a response to the severe shock and the major change in the political system and its leadership after the defeat at the river Allia 389 BC. The paper focuses on the historical causes of this collective behavior as well as its effects on the stability of the political order of the Roman Republic in comparison to Athenian Democracy.