Research

Main research and teaching interests

International History and Foreign Policy History

Media History

History of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture

Dissertation project

Working title: The West German Construction of the "Arab World". Perceptual constructions in the public sphere and foreign policy. (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Friedrich Kießling)

Short description:

In my dissertation [JR1] project on contemporary history, I am investigating the emergence, impact, and transformation of perceptual constructions of the 'Arab World' in West German foreign policy discourses in the period from 1964 to 1982. Images, ideas, and other constructions of knowledge determine our everyday life and are used for everyday orientation as well as for the exchange of opinions in political discourse by the political elites and other parts of the public discussion. At least since Edward Said's study of Orientalism, the consideration of constructions and narratives of the Other has also increasingly come into the focus of historical scholarship. Especially in the field of the history of foreign policy with the MENA region, however, there are desiderata for the Federal Republic. Here, 'Arab world' is the term primarily used in the sources, behind which there is not only a meaning of a word, but a field of knowledge that is discursively formed, shaped, and used again for evaluation and thus for the formation of reality. My work here follows a classic constructivist research perspective, according to which the perception of reality is not an "objective" perception, but always a socially constructed perception. As a specific body of knowledge, this construction of perception is not only used to make a statement at a certain point in time but it is also used to construct and interpret further social construction processes. The spatial construction 'Arab world' is not only a perception but also the basis for foreign policy prognoses and concrete political action. There is a coexistence of different narratives, which become more differentiated in the course of the period under consideration and are called into question in their overarching pan-Arab interpretation at least since the conclusion of the Camp David Accords.

The work is based on four guiding questions. It examines how and in what way social perceptual constructions of the "Arab world" emerge, to then ask which constructions they are in concrete terms, what constitutes them, and how these knowledge formations develop in the course of the period under consideration. Furthermore, it should be clarified to what extent these aspects are reflected in the public sphere or partial public spheres, for example, the academic discourse. Are there reactions, transformations, consequences, hierarchies, or boundaries, or what is the relationship between the public construction of world knowledge and the process of foreign policy decision-making and action, which in the period under study is primarily carried out by a small circle of practitioners? Finally, this also raises the question of the discourse’s[JR2]  character, structure, and functioning.

To answer these questions and to do justice to the intended overarching field of discourse participants, I analyse sources from federal and party politics, academia, the press, television, and tourism. This selection does not only follow the division into arcane and public but attempts to cover various social areas in which a discussion of the "Arab world" is present employing a media mix.

With this rough outline, my work is oriented towards a new political history or a cultural history of (foreign) politics. It is not only intended to contribute to an understanding of current problems but also to examine in concrete terms the formation, transformation, and impact of perceptual constructions in German foreign policy. In addition to fundamental results on German foreign policy with the "Arab World", it will also be able to reveal discourse mechanisms, connected to the practical example, and make statements on the relationship between published opinion and foreign policy decision-makers.