Barbara Marshall

The Chancellor, 1969–74

It was mainly on the basis of their outlook on foreign policy that the new coalition between the SPD and the FDP was formed; no agreement on domestic affairs was attempted. The negotiations proceeded speedily with the FDP obtaining three major ministries: Foreign – for party leader Scheel – Interior and Agriculture. This was more than their electoral success seemed to warrant and indicated the extent to which the small coalition partner was able to use its pivotal position. Despite this success the coalition was highly controversial, not only in the FDP, and Brandt was elected Chancellor by only two votes (251 to 249). Although this was two votes more than Adenauer had received in 1949, as Brandt was quick to point out, it also reflected the shaky ground on which the new government rested. This partly explains the enormous speed with which it tackled the tasks it had set itself.

Inside Immigration Law: Migration Management and Policy in Germany

the unions’ preference is for regulation through collective bargaining as this gives them institutional control over regulation. This occurred where unions were powerful enough to impose collective bargaining on employers and where the absence of Napoleonic codes gave no framework for contract law that could be applied to the employment contract in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Denmark, Britain and Sweden). The paradox is that in these countries any extension of regulation had to be agreed with reluctant employers, whereas in other countries, statutory regulation meant that labour friendly governments could legislate on the matter at critical junctures without the agreement of employers, resulting in more extensive regulation in these countries. In all countries, institutional drift led unions to argue for administrative oversight of hiring, and especially, dismissal procedures around the turn of the 1970s through statutory regulation. This gave unions institutional power resources that they are keen to retain. However, even where labour movements are still relatively strong, such as in Sweden, the dualization of the labour market can be observed. This is explained by unions accepting the deregulation of temporary work in order to retain the institutionalized power resource of influence over dismissal procedures for open-ended contracts in a context where their power resources have been depleted by neo-liberal hegemony, monetarism and globalization. This is a rich and compelling account of a central area of conflict between labour and capital, to which this short review cannot do full justice. As a detailed analysis of job security regulation it certainly furthers our understanding of developments in this area, but it also broadens our understanding of the development of capital–labour relations in Europe more generally by situating these developments in a broader analysis of changes and differences in state–society relations and the political economy in temporal and cross-national terms. It is a moot point as to whether Emmenegger has produced an all-encompassing theory of the development of job security regulation, or whether marrying power resources theory to historical institutionalism (merely?) produces a toolkit to examine different national trajectories that point to the importance of national specificities and institutional histories. In this sense, the work may point to the impossibility of reducing diverse and complex national trajectories to all-encompassing theories. In setting out these trajectories in such a clear and accessible manner, however, Emmenegger has produced a work that should be of interest to scholars and students of industrial relations, labour movements and political economy.

Grenzen der Bevölkerungspolitik: Strategien und Diskurse Demographischer Steuerung

This collection of articles by women sociologists and political scientists addresses one of the most salient problems of our time: population explosion in the developing world but decline in Europe. The issues have vast implications for the economic development, ecology and the position of women in the former and the future of the welfare state, employment, etc. in the latter category. Matters are complicated by regional variations: in Europe alone there are considerable differences between states with noticeably more family friendly policies (Scandinavia and France), which show a less marked decline, and the traditionally catholic countries (Spain, Portugal and Italy), which show a greater one. Germany occupies a special place: it emerges as the country with the most conservative family policies. Its birth rate is now one of the lowest in Europe. The book is divided into two sections. The first contains more theoretical examinations, whereas the second presents analyses of specific policy strategies and outcomes. Two contributions in the present volume make the wider connection of population growth worldwide and decline in Europe, namely Bettina Rainer’s chapter on population growth as global catastrophe and Diana Hummel’s on population growth from a socio-economic perspective. A third contribution, Ursula Ferdinand’s chapter on theories of fertility decline in the 1930s in Germany, draws attention to the fact that concerns over population decline are not new. For German academics this debate tends to lead straight into the natalist policies of the Third Reich, as examined here by Barbara Willenbach, who reminds us of the extent to which population policies were used for social engineering. Against this background, the contributors to the present volume draw quite different conclusions about the German government’s attempts to put a stop to population decline by introducing a range of family-friendly measures. The scene is set by an overview of the public discourse which accompanies these government policies. Barbara Holland-Cunz’s article examines the present discourse on population decline in Germany, which is characterized by emotive language even in ‘quality’ media such as the broadsheet Frankfurter Rundschau or the TV news programme Tagesschau. The approach is comparable with that used in the climate change debate, where possible outcomes lie in an unpredictable future. The escalating and at times near hysterical public attention seems to act as a projection of societal and individual anxieties. Moreover, an increasingly overt hostility to women’s emancipation emerges when ‘traditional values’, such as a ‘return to the hearth’, is advocated as a possible alternative to demographic catastrophe.

Review Article: Recent Books on Migration

Michael BOMMES, Migration und nationaler Wohlfahrtsstaat, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999, pp. 244, €31.00, ISBN 3-531-13462-0 (pbk) Ursula APITZSCH (ed.) Migration und Traditionsbildung, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1999, pp. 313, €27.00, ISBN 3-531-13378-0 (pbk) Matthias JUNG, Thomas NIEHR and Karin BÖKE, Ausländer und Migranten im Spiegel der Presse: Ein diskurshistorisches Wörterbuch zur Einwanderung seit 1945, Westdeutscher Verlag, 2000, pp. 190, €28.00, ISBN 3-531-13278-4 (pbk) Thomas NIEHR und Karin BÖKE, Einwanderungsdiskurse: Vergleichende diskurslinguistische Studien, Westdeutscher Verlag, 2000, pp. 239, €28.00, ISBN 3-531-13307-1 (pbk)

The Early Years, 1913–45

The town of Lubeck, in which Willy Brandt was born on 18 December 1913, was a wealthy city which owed much of its prosperity to its port on the Baltic Sea. It had been a member of the Hansa League, and its leading patrician class was characterized by centuries of world-wide trading links which had instilled the seemingly quiet confidence which the novelist Thomas Mann depicts so well in Buddenbrooks. For the town this meant excellent cultural and educational provision from which the young Willy Brandt was later to benefit greatly. However, there was another side to the city: a poor working class which prided itself on its own traditions and culture. Between the two there was little contact.

The Grand Coalition, 1966–9

The fortunes of Chancellor Erhard, relatively inexperienced in politics and under constant criticism from former Chancellor Adenauer, deteriorated rapidly after his election victory. He came to grief in the area of his greatest former success, the economy. In 1966 it went into a minor recession with 4.5 per cent inflation and 100 000 unemployed against 600 000 job vacancies and 1.4 million guest workers in the country. However, the media and experts predicted an almost inevitable worsening of the ‘crisis’ and this irrational anxiety was also widespread in the public at large.

Brandt in Berlin, 1946–66

The end of the war in May 1945 had left most of the German cities in ruins, without basic services or transportation. It became the priority of the allies occupying the country to get these going again so as to avoid the outbreak of serious disease. An attempt to settle Germany’s political and economic future was made at the Potsdam Conference (July/August 1945) which endorsed earlier war-time decisions, such as those at Yalta (February 1945), to divide the country into four zones of military occupation. A future central German administration (which never materialized owing to disagreements among the allies) was to be controlled by an inter-allied Control Commission. Germany was to be treated as an economic unit; this was to enable all allies to take reparations from the whole country.

The Elder Statesman, 1982–92

Although the immediate response to Schmidt’s overthrow was an emotional surge of support for the SPD with good election results in Hesse and in Hamburg, once Schmidt was replaced by Hans Jochen Vogel as Chancellor candidate the party’s chances of winning the forthcoming federal elections of March 1983 were remote. The SPD lost the ‘Schmidt-Faktor’ and while the new candidate was hardworking he lacked charisma (Brandt characterized him as ‘the one with the seethrough folders’). The result of 38.2 per cent for the SPD was therefore disappointing but hardly surprising. This was followed by dramatic changes for the party: immediately after the election Wehner announced his resignation from politics, due to illness, but also because his main objective, to install and keep the SPD in power, had come to such obvious grief.

Out of Office, 1974–82

A recent study of all Chancellors of the Federal Republic reveals the profound impact which the loss of power had on them, even if it had been foreseen over a long period or when it came at the end of a long and exhausting career (such as in the case of Adenauer). For Brandt the change was too abrupt and the doubts about his own conduct in resigning too vivid not to cause a deep personal crisis. According to his memoirs he found some guidance from a leading member of the Protestant Church but although he accepted his fall from power, on the whole, with dignity, the next year was perhaps the most difficult of his life. His physical appearance changed: where previously the pressures of office had produced a mask-like face this now appeared more relaxed, but also puffed up as a result of alcohol consumption and a general increase in weight.