CIAO DATE: 11/03

The State of International Relations Research and Perspectives in Germany

Gunther Hellmann, editor
August 2003

Contributions to Development Theories since the End of the East-West-Conflict by Joachim Betz

Abstract

The development debate in Germany after 1990 was characterized by some kind of stocktaking of former grand theories, leading to the survival of dependency theories in the guise of debates around the new world order and globalization. However, an intellectual convergence is visible with respect to a new development strategy, which draws its inspiration from a refashioned Wahington consensus enriched by participatory, institutional and social concerns. This has much to do with a missing alternative to a more or less forced integration of developing countries into the world economy. The German debate is characterized by an emphasis on either the dichotomy of general assumptions on the Third World or by taking refuge in a debate on postfordism, the new world order and globalization on one side and by conducting microstudies without theoretical ambition on the other side. From this perhaps harsh criticism some new fields of research interest have to be exempted, in particular those on crisis prevention and peace consolidation in ethnic conflicts, on democratic transition and consolidation in developing countries, and, more recently, on international terrorism. In these fields the German debate has produced quite a few original and empirically rich contributions.