Making Green Germany: The Emergence of Climate Politics amidst German Reunification and the Post-Cold War Transformation of Europe
Final Report Abstract
This research project studies how efforts to mitigate anthropogenic climate change gained political currency in the reunified Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) during the 1990s. It considers how the end of the Cold War and German Reunification shaped the emergence of climate change as a political issue, but also examines the influence of climate politics on reunified Germany. The project departs from previous scholarship, which describes climate change as a unique problem and thus rarely considers its relationship to mainstream politics, by considering the myriad ways in which climate politics were entangled in German reunification and Europe’s post-Cold War transformation. The perceived separation between climate change and the political mainstream is underpinned by interpretations of climate change that describe it as a set of technical puzzles. Collectively, these puzzles are said to comprise a “wicked problem,” that could nonetheless be solved using highly specific, well-engineered “solutions.” This project challenges that understanding by showing that the climate politics promoted by the FRG immediately after the Cold War were neither separate technical solutions nor radical attempts to “change everything” in order to solve the world’s most complicated problem—they were part of essential political debates in reunified Germany. The project studies three transformations that re-shaped post-Cold War Europe in order to find and analyze the links between climate politics and high politics: (1) the expansion and entrenchment of liberal democracy and neo-liberal economics after the end of Communism, (2) the creation of new identities after the end of German (and European) division, and (3) the re-conception of technology amid the transformation of Cold War Big Science. Using archival sources, the project conducts four case studies: (1) the acceptance of market-based solutions to environmental problems embodied by the widespread support for the idea of a green economy, (2) the changing conception of citizenship and participation evident in the encouragement of private energy production through Feed-in-Tariff legislation and the association of decentralized, small-scale renewable energy production with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, (3) the importance of climate diplomacy as a forum for international leadership and a basis for a new German identity, and (4) the transformation of environmental politics from a countercultural project to a space for practical, sciencedriven problem-solving. By studying post-Cold War era climate politics in the FRG, this project reveals how climate change became not only a salient issue, but also part of mainstream politics in the 1990s. Thus, it furthers a broader re-conception of environmental history that better links the study of environmental concerns with “mainstream” social and political problems. Interviews with Stephen Milder: Hermann, Christian. “Texas ist das grüne Powerhouse der USA.“ Wieder was gelernt – der ntv Podcast. (13 May 2023). Open Access. Nerbollier, Delphine. “Nucléaire en Allemagne: les trois dernières centrales du pays débranchées ce week-end.” La Croix (14 April 2023).
Publications
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Review Essay. German Politics and Society, 38(4), 91-96.
Milder, Stephen
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“AICGS Asks: What is Angela Merkel’s Climate Policy Legacy?” American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (5 August).
Milder, Stephen
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A Struggle to Remake the Market: Feed-in Rates and Alternative Energy in 1980s West Germany. Contemporary European History, 31(4), 593-609.
Milder, Stephen
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From ‘Grey Democracy’ to the ‘Green New Deal’: Post-war Democracy and the Hegemonic Imaginary of Material Politics in Western Europe. Journal of Modern European History, 20(3), 288-293.
Couperus, Stefan & Milder, Stephen
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Re-Interpreting West Germany’s Ecological Revolution: Environmental Politics, Grassroots Activism, and Democracy in the Long 1970s. European History Quarterly, 52(3), 332-351.
Milder, Stephen
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Rethinking Social Movements after '68: Selves and Solidarities in West Germany and Beyond. Berghahn Books.
Davis, Belinda; Brühöfener, Friederike & Milder, Stephen
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“Making ‘Freedom Energies’? How 1980s struggles over market access shaped the rise of renewables in Germany.” Cambridge Core blog (29 July).
Milder, Stephen
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“‘Alle reden vom Wetter.’ Zur Geschichte eines Slogans und zur wandelnden Bedeutung von Umweltthemen in den sozialen Bewegungen und in der Politik.” Mitteilungen des Archivs der Arbeiterjugendbewegung (July): 16-22.
Milder, Stephen
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“Nur nicht über Klimaschutz reden.“ Zeit Online (21 April).
Milder, Stephen
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From Tinkerers to Consultants: Individual Engagement, Reunification and the Making of Germany’s Renewable Energy Sector. Global Environment, 17(1), 15-46.
Milder, Stephen
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Petra Kelly: Life and Legacy of a Transnational Green Activist. Environment and Society Portal. Virtual Exhibitions 2024, No. 1 (February).
Milder, Stephen & Andreas Jünger
