Suchergebnisse

Changes in the energy sector cannot be
sufficiently described as reactions to past and present energy problems. Rather,
politicians and companies alike always react to the anticipation of future challenges.
Sharing this assumption, the articles in this HSR Special Issue reexamine
the energy crises of the 1970s. Their assessments broaden the temporal
and spatial scope of analysis and integrate various energy resources into
the picture, while examining how to situate the first and second oil crises within
the 1970s and the contemporary history of the industrialized world as a
whole.

Both in scholarship on the Weimar Republic and in historical research in general, many conceptions of 'crisis' tend to remain vague and difficult to operationalize. These operational defects of the concept of crisis arise inevitably, we argue, from the concept's constitutive link to human perception on the one hand and from its subsumption of complex interconnections of historical processes within different subsystems on the other. Frequently today, in both ordinary and historiographical usage, this basic openness of the concept of crisis is foreclosed when it is deployed with a solely negative connotation of 'downfall' and 'decline', or of something being thrown into question or jeopardy. Such uses obscure a way in which a crisis can evoke not only the pessimistic sense of a threat to the old order but also the optimistic scenario of a chance for renewal. A one-sidedly negative understanding of crisis as prelude to calamity, we argue here, is problematic for historical research for two reasons. Firstly, it obscures comprehension of the consciousness of actors in the relevant period who at any particular moment can have had no prior knowledge of the crisis's outcome. Secondly, it tends to reify the relevant crisis and to occlude its basic character as something narratively constructed in the accounts of both contemporaries and subsequent historiography.

Since the end of the Cold War, Human Security has become an important approach in international politics, law, and political science. In contrast to the so-called 'Westphalian System' that knows only states as subjects and objects of security, human security aims at the security of individual human beings if failed or failing states do not protect them nor provide for their basic needs. Thereby, such heterogeneous forms of security as security from war, food security, energy security or security from crime and traffic accidents become common problems of international politics. Developing this new concept of security, UN documents as well as some experts suggest that the extended concept of security is a recurrence of the premodern concept of security that prevailed before the clear-cut distinction between domestic and international politics and the evolution of the system of states. This introduction discusses contributions on the premodern and contemporary history of (human) security and tries to assess the heuristic potential of the concept for historical research.

"Since the end of the Cold War, Human Security has become an important approach in international politics, law, and political science. In contrast to the so-called 'Westphalian System' that knows only states as subjects and objects of security, human security aims at the security of individual human beings if failed or failing states do not protect them nor provide for their basic needs. Thereby, such heterogeneous forms of security as security from war, food security, energy security or security from crime and traffic accidents become common problems of international politics. Developing this new concept of security, UN documents as well as some experts suggest that the extended concept of security is a recurrence of the premodern concept of security that prevailed before the clear-cut distinction between domestic and international politics and the evolution of the system of states. This introduction discusses contributions on the premodern and contemporary history of (human) security and tries to assess the heuristic potential of the concept for historical research." (author's abstract)

While Crises are omnipresent in history and historiography, the meaning of the concept of "Crisis" is becoming more elusive than ever. The new article by Rüdiger Graf and Konrad H. Jarausch scrutinizes how historians use the concept with respect to contemporary history, the twentieth century, and modernity in general. After briefly sketching the conceptual history of "crisis," the article addresses the questions of how the concept structures historiographical narratives, what types of crises historians distinguish, and, considering its vagueness, suggestive power, and political instrumentalization, if we should retain the concept or refrain from using it.

Vorspann
Seit die Zeitgeschichte die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts als Forschungsfeld erschlossen hat, steht sie mehr denn je vor der Herausforderung, wie sie mit den Deutungsangeboten der Sozialwissenschaften umgehen soll. Bloße Adaption oder selbstbewusste Behauptung und damit Beharrung auf den spezifischen Regeln, die der Zeitgeschichte eigen sind? Rüdiger Graf und Kim Priemel, Protagonisten einer gegenwartsnahen Zeitgeschichte, stellen sich diesen Fragen. Sie kritisieren (und illustrieren) die unbekümmerte Entlehnung sozialwissenschaftlicher Theorien und Methoden, plädieren aber gleichzeitig dafür, das eigene Methodenarsenal zu erweitern – durch die reflektierte behutsame Nutzung der Nachbardisziplinen, deren Begriffe und Methoden historisiert, kontextualisiert und mit der genuinen Herangehensweise der Zeitgeschichte verbunden werden müssen.

Seit die Zeitgeschichte die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts als Forschungsfeld erschlossen hat, steht sie mehr denn je vor der Herausforderung, wie sie mit den Deutungsangeboten der Sozialwissenschaften umgehen soll. Bloße Adaption oder selbstbewusste Behauptung und damit Beharrung auf den spezifischen Regeln, die der Zeitgeschichte eigen sind? Rüdiger Graf und Kim Priemel, Protagonisten einer gegenwartsnahen Zeitgeschichte, stellen sich diesen Fragen. Sie kritisieren (und illustrieren) die unbekümmerte Entlehnung sozialwissenschaftlicher Theorien und Methoden, plädieren aber gleichzeitig dafür, das eigene Methodenarsenal zu erweitern – durch die reflektierte behutsame Nutzung der Nachbardisziplinen, deren Begriffe und Methoden historisiert, kontextualisiert und mit der genuinen Herangehensweise der Zeitgeschichte verbunden werden müssen. ; Unlike other historiographic disciplines contemporary history has to define itself in a both intra- and interdisciplinary arena. While the debate on when exactly contemporary history begins has accompanied its practitioners from the very beginning, the question as to what sets it apart from other social sciences has long been suspended. With the fields of research moving rapidly into the last decades of the twentieth century this problem becomes increasingly urgent. Not only does contemporary history investigate the same empirical phenomena that have already been analysed by sociologists, economists, and political scientists, it also appropriates the theories constructed by these neighbouring disciplines. The present article exemplarily outlines this borrowing practice looking at the careers of theoretical models such as value change, international interdependence and economic structural change first in their own fields, then among historians. Beyond the easily identifiable hazards of using the data compiled by contemporary social scientists and reproducing their findings, the more fundamental problem lies in the all-too-easy adoption of the theories by which these have been produced. The heuristic and explanatory appeal of these theories results from their epistemic proximity to the hermeneutic horizon of contemporary historians and leads to the adoption rather than critical reflection of such models. This danger, however, also leads to the great potential of contemporary history which should historicise and look beyond the perspectives of contemporary social scientists. ; Peer Reviewed

Unlike other historiographic disciplines contemporary history has to define itself in a both intra- and interdisciplinary arena. While the debate on when exactly contemporary history begins has accompanied its practitioners from the very beginning, the question as to what sets it apart from other social sciences has long been suspended. With the fields of research moving rapidly into the last decades of the twentieth century this problem becomes increasingly urgent. Not only does contemporary history investigate the same empirical phenomena that have already been analysed by sociologists, economists, and political scientists, it also appropriates the theories constructed by these neighbouring disciplines. The present article exemplarily outlines this borrowing practice looking at the careers of theoretical models such as value change, international interdependence and economic structural change first in their own fields, then among historians. Beyond the easily identifiable hazards of using the data compiled by contemporary social scientists and reproducing their findings, the more fundamental problem lies in the all-too-easy adoption of the theories by which these have been produced. The heuristic and explanatory appeal of these theories results from their epistemic proximity to the hermeneutic horizon of contemporary historians and leads to the adoption rather than critical reflection of such models. This danger, however, also leads to the great potential of contemporary history which should historicise and look beyond the perspectives of contemporary social scientists. ; Seit die Zeitgeschichte die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts als Forschungsfeld erschlossen hat, steht sie mehr denn je vor der Herausforderung, wie sie mit den Deutungsangeboten der Sozialwissenschaften umgehen soll. Bloße Adaption oder selbstbewusste Behauptung und damit Beharrung auf den spezifischen Regeln, die der Zeitgeschichte eigen sind? Rüdiger Graf und Kim Priemel, Protagonisten einer gegenwartsnahen Zeitgeschichte, stellen sich diesen Fragen. Sie kritisieren (und illustrieren) die unbekümmerte Entlehnung sozialwissenschaftlicher Theorien und Methoden, plädieren aber gleichzeitig dafür, das eigene Methodenarsenal zu erweitern – durch die reflektierte behutsame Nutzung der Nachbardisziplinen, deren Begriffe und Methoden historisiert, kontextualisiert und mit der genuinen Herangehensweise der Zeitgeschichte verbunden werden müssen

Im ökonomischen Boom der Nachkriegsjahrzehnte wuchs die Bedeutung des Öls für das Funktionieren moderner Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftsordnungen und damit auch für die Legitimität liberal-demokratischer Staatsgebilde.Als die OPEC im Oktober 1973 den Ölpreis drastisch erhöhte und die OAPEC die Öllieferung beschränkte, um Druck im Nahostkonflikt auszuüben, kam dies weder plötzlich noch überraschend, zeigte aber in aller Deutlichkeit, dass die Politik in Westeuropa und den USA von einer Grundlage abhing, die sie selbst nicht kontrollieren konnte. Regierungen begegneten dieser Herausforderung ihrer Souveränität mit einem Ensemble von nationalen und internationalen Maßnahmen vom Ausbau des ölbezogenen Wissens, des Petroknowledge, über die Umstrukturierung der Energiesektoren bis zu diplomatischen Initiativen, um die Welt des Öls neu zu ordnen. Die Untersuchung dieser souveränitätspolitischen Strategien und ihrer medialen Kommunikation verortet die Ölkrise in den Transformationsprozessen der 1970er Jahre und legt zugleich deren historiographische Neubewertung als Beginn unserer Zeit nahe.

Der Verlauf der Revolution 1918/19 weckte auch an der Ostsee große Hoffnungen auf eine bessere Welt. Die für das ganze Reich und den Freistaat Preußen geschaffene Gesetzgebung gestaltete die rechtlichen und sozialen Verhältnisse dauerhaft um.Jenseits der Klischees vom konservativen Ostelbien macht der Band deutlich, dass sich Kräfte der Veränderung auch in Stralsund, Greifswald, Stettin und in den Provinzen Pommern und Ostpreußen regten. Die Revolution in der Metropole Berlin wirkte in mannigfacher Weise auch auf die Peripherie. Ausgewiesene Historikerinnen, Historiker und Juristen des In- und Auslands zeichnen den tiefgreifenden Wandel nach und tragen zu einer Neubewertung der Revolution bei.