How do societies transitioning from oppressive to democratic rule hold accountable those citizens who contributed to maintaining injustice in the ancient regime by secretly denouncing fellow citizens? Is their public identification a way of fulfilling respect for those who suffered harm as a result of their collaboration? And is public identification respectful of denunciators themselves? This book pursues these questions through a multidisciplinary investigation focusing on the denunciators for the East German secret police and the Ministry of State Security and (...) the way in which they have been publicly unveiled in contemporary German society. The book evaluates the justifications that social actors offer to support or oppose public identifications; how targeted collaborators react to this social practice; and whether it achieves its intended purpose. At every stage, the book asks whether the motivations and the consequences of public identifications honor or undermine the value of respect for people. (shrink)

This paper argues that pre‐departure language requirements for family reunification are unjustified. Such requirements are assumed to safeguard (1) the non‐instrumental cultural interests of citizens of the receiving society and (2) the instrumental language interests of both citizens and immigrants, for democratic life and political participation. The paper explores nationalist and multiculturalist arguments for implementing post‐arrival integration to ensure a shared public language but contends that such arguments cannot justify pre‐departure language requirements. In addition, instrumental language interests for democratic (...) political life fall empirically short and place undue burdens on immigrants. The case of family reunification poses a unique moral problem, given the vital interest in living with one's family. The paper argues that the linguistic interests of the receiving state, in general, do not outweigh the claim to family reunification. (shrink)

La désagrégation de la Yougoslavie, simultanée dans ses phases décisives avec la réunification allemande, permet de mesurer les facteurs d'une unification consentie d'un espace politique. Contrairement à l'espace germanique, la Yougoslavie n'a connu d'union politique que de 1918 à 1941 et de 1945 à 1991. La coupure entre les catholiques du Nord-Ouest et les orthodoxes du Sud-Est a enraciné pendant quinze siècles une séparation politique, qui a été aggravée par l'occupation ottomane de l'aire orthodoxe. Cette opposition n'a pas pu être (...) surmontée malgré la volonté d'élites intellectuelles et politiques d'élaborer un monde commun. Contrairement au cas allemand, où une langue commune et un passé commun ont neutralisé la coupure catholiques/protestants et l'épisode communiste à l'Est, l'absence de références historiques communes a invalidé politiquement la similitude des langues serbe et croate.The disintegration of Yugoslavia, in its simultaneous decisive phases with the German reunification, to measure factors unification granted political space. Unlike the Germanic area, Yugoslavia has experienced political union from 1918 to 1941 and from 1945 to 1991. The cutoff between Northwest Catholic and Orthodox South East has rooted for fifteen centuries separation policy, which has been exacerbated by the Ottoman occupation of the area Orthodox. This opposition could not be overcome despite the willingness of intellectual elites and political develop a common world. Unlike in Germany, where a common language and a common past neutralized cut Catholic / Protestant episode communist East, the lack of common historical references invalidated politically similarity of languages Serbian and Croatian. (shrink)

Thomas Elsaesser _Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject_ Amsterdam University Press, 1996 ISBN 9053561846 (hb); 9053560599 (pb) 396 pp.