Digital Book Launch
"The Politics of Military Force. Antimilitarism, Ideational Change, and Post-Cold War German Security Discourse. Ann Arbor 2020."
by Frank Stengel
Tuesday, 29 June 2021, 5-6 pm (online)
The Politics of Military Force examines the dynamics of discursive change that made participation in military operations possible against the background of German antimilitarist culture. Once considered a strict taboo, so-called out-of-area operations have now become widely considered by German policymakers to be without alternative. The book argues that an understanding of how certain policies are made possible (in this case, military operations abroad and force transformation), one needs to focus on processes of discursive change that result in different policy options appearing rational, appropriate, feasible, or even self-evident. The Politics of Military Force provides an explanation for: (1) the emergence of a new hegemonic discourse in German security policy after the end of the Cold War (discursive change), (2) the rearticulation of German antimilitarism in the process (ideational change/norm erosion) and (3) the resulting making-possible of military operations and force transformation (policy change).
Chair:
Prof. Dr. Thorsten Bonacker (Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Commentaries:
Prof. Dr. Hubert Zimmermann (Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Prof. Dr. Annick Wibben (Swedish Defense-Univ. Stockholm)
