Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Foreign policy of Germany has gained due to its special development in the post-war period some unique traits -- strong multilateral and westward orientation and civilian character. German unification became a turning point in this respect. The country was confronted with the necessity to find its new place within the changing international system. This paper focuses on the subsequent changes of foreign policy. Its purpose is to evaluate the change or continuity of these unique traits on one side and to describe Germany's new role in the international relations on the other. The initial step is to picture the function of bodies involved in shaping the foreign policy - government, parliament, individual federal countries and president. Further on the paper outlines the main events of German unification, restoring its full international subjectivity. The core descriptive part is divided in three main segments in terms of the personality leading the government, the chancellor. It first gives an account of foreign policy of the "Kohl era", continues with Schröder government and closes with foreign policy of Angela Merkel. With the view of the complexity of such a task the paper focuses on selected policy areas only -- European integration, transatlantic cooperation and partnership with Russia being among them.

After the Christian democratic CDU party was forced into the opposition after the parliamentary elections of 1969 it created a program commission which should update the party's Berlin Program adopted few months earlier. Surprisingly it drafted a wholly new party manifesto challenging crucial dogmas of party's policies which led to stormy discussions. This thesis argues that this development was a consequence of generation change in the party which was accelerated by the loss of government as well as a result of the influence of the chairman of the program commission, Helmut Kohl. Kohl was a leading figure of the young rising generation in the party and a strong proponent of party reform. He created conditions in the commission for creation of a progressive proposal by giving influence to talented young reform oriented politicians. But the conservatives in the party were still strong enough to fight back and moderate the reform impetus of the draft. Party committee redrafted it and weakened some central progressive statements. Only the undisputable loss in the elections of 1972 and following election of Helmut Kohl to party chairman made the way free for a thru party reform. Many of the young politicians allied with Kohl during the program discussion in early 1970s became key figures in the CDU....

My doctoral project investigates the impact of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative on transatlantic relations during the period 1983-86. The dissertation focuses on the three main European powers, namely Britain, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany, and examines their reaction to SDI both individually and comparatively. The study exploits SDI’s position at the intersection of nuclear strategy, political ideology, Cold War diplomacy, and industrial politics to offer a multifaceted, multi-national, and primary source-based analysis of US-European relations during the Reagan Presidency. The picture of the transatlantic relationship which emerges from the dissertation is a complex and nuanced one. On the one hand, the analysis argues that relations across the Atlantic during the Reagan era cannot be reduced to a scenario of accelerating ‘drift’ between the United States and Western Europe. Instead, on SDI as well as on other matters, moments of acute friction alternated with a constantly renewed search for dialogue, cooperation, and compromise on the part of the Europeans and also, if to a lesser degree, of the Americans. On the other hand, the ‘exceptionalist’ ideology and worldview underpinning SDI, the prevailing indifference in Washington to its implications for NATO, and most importantly the persistent anti-nuclear rhetoric and ambitions associated with the initiative revealed a distinct lack of sensitivity to European interest by the Reagan administration. As the dissertation shows, the anti-nuclear drive inherent in SDI, which both reflected and reinforced Reagan’s deep-seated interest in nuclear abolition, constituted the most disruptive aspect of the initiative from the viewpoint of European leaders. In these respects, the SDI controversy epitomises the unilateral tendencies and increasingly divergent priorities from those of the European allies which characterised much of the Reagan administration’s foreign policy – making the 1980s a decade of recurrent tensions in transatlantic relations.

This thesis addressed the arms export control in the Federal Republic of Germany during the tenure of chancellor Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder between 1989 and 2005. To this end this thesis elaborated an analytical framework, which analyses this phenomenon thought government arms export policy. Due to lack of preceding research in this area it was necessary to devote significant space for conceptual definition of the arms export policy and contextualization of analytical framework. It was argued that arms export policy of the Federal Republic of Germany should be analyzed as a passive sub-category within security policy. Analytical framework employed to analyze the period between 1989 and 2005 thus reflected four factors or standpoints that exert influence on arms export policy (foreign pressures, security policy, European coordination and legislative and institutional framework). This thesis designed as disciplined interpretive case study posited two hypothesis based on concepts that have been partially applied to arms export phenomenon in different context and time period. First hypothesis concerns the nature of change of arms exports control, which was supposed to change between periods restriction and relaxation of export control. Second hypothesis postulates the nature of change of arms exports...

Dieses Weihnachtsfest wurde ohne Vorahnung zu einem Beiwerk inmitten großer Ereignisse. Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit dem Rückblick auf dieses besondere Jubiläum 1989 bis 2019 – seit drei Jahrzehnten gibt es Weihnachten ohne Grenzen zwischen Ost und West. Es war 1989 kein Fest für Weihnachtsengel & Co., sondern nur ein Beiwerk inmitten der großen Ereignisse des Jahres mit Aufbruch eines Volkes, Revolution und Mauerfall. Rückerinnerungen an die Zeit der sogenannten Friedlichen Revolution 1989 und Öffnung der Grenzbefestigungen lohnen sich mit der Erkenntnis: Das Jahr 1989 war ein absolutes Ausnahmejahr für jeden ehemaligen DDR-Bürger - jeder befand sich zum Jahresende durchaus in einer Art Ausnahmezustand. Plötzlich, vollkommen unerwartet und unvorbereitet, wurde es möglich, dass sich Menschen in Ost und West, die Jahrzehnte durch eine Mauer getrennt waren, wiedersehen konnten und mit Tränen in den Augen um den Hals fielen, vielleicht sogar schon im Kreis der Familie Weihnachten feierten. Das Wir-Gefühl, eine Welle der Verbundenheit, erfasste damals alle.