europe and america in the mirror

2

EUROPE

AND

AMERICA

IN THE

MIRROR

3

CULTURE,

ECONOMY,

AND HISTORY

EUROPE

AND

AMERICA

IN THE

MIRROR

EDITED BY

MAIK ARNOLD

PRZEMYSŁAW ŁUKASIK

4

© Copyright by Zakład Wydawniczy »NOMOS« 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission of Zakład Wydawniczy »NOMOS«

This publication was supported by the Goethe-Institut and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen

ISBN 978-83-7688-091-4

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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

Printed in Poland 2012 by Zakład Wydawniczy »NOMOS«31-208 Kraków, ul. Kluczborska 25/3uPhone: (+48 12) 626 19 21e-mail: [email protected]; www.nomos.pl

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Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Maik Arnold and Przemysław Łukasik

Historical Approaches to Transatlantic Relations

‘From Love to Hate’: A Story of Germania and Sam – Annotations to the History of American-German Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Przemysław Łukasik and Maik Arnold

The USA and European Integration: A New Approach to the History of a Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Peter Pichler

Transatlantic Economic and Political Perspectives

Adapting the Status Quo of the U.S. Economy and the Criticism of U.S. Economic Policy after the Financial Crisis of 2008 . . . . 73

Przemysław Furgacz

Much Ado about Nothing? The German Response to the Economic Crisis and the Transatlantic Controversies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Anna Tomaszczyk

Towards a Transcultural Community of Climate Change: Adapting Max Weber’s Distinction of Vergemeinschaftung and

Vergesellschaftung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Annika Arnold

6 Contents

Perceptions of Self and Others and their Influence on the Structuration of Work Relations: German Expatriates in Mexico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Martina Maletzky

Social, Cultural, and Religious Developments in Europe

‘Greedy American Shylock’ – The Genesis and the Evolution of the German Anti-Americanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Przemysław Łukasik

The New Spirit of Capitalism in Popular Culture: A Comparative Analysis Focusing on Contemporary Coming-Of-Age-Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Martin Gloger

The Three Rays of Triskelion: Celtomania in Contemporary Northern Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Gala Rebane

How Does Religion Matter Today in Poland? Secularization in Europe and the ‘Causa Polonia Semper Fidelis’ . . . . . . . . . 199

Maik Arnold

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Abstracts and Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

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Acknowledgements

This volume collects together a set of papers which stem from three preliminary activities: Firstly, the idea to create this volume was initia-ted by the “Identity, Migration and International Relations: Diagnoses, Symptoms and Future Prospects in Europe and the U.S.” workshop for mainly German doctoral and postdoctoral researchers which took place at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen, Germany, on February 10th 2011. Secondly, at the symposium “Trans-atlantic Images and Realities: American-German Relations Conference” held at the Goethe Institut in Cracow, Poland, on March 25th 2011, other young scholars from Polish universities, such as the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and the University of Warsaw, had the opportunity to participate in some particularly vibrant presentations and discussions. These two excellent academic venues provided an extraordinarily fertile basis and ideal surroundings for trans- and interdisciplinary research in the field of humanities, social, and cultural studies which can be seen in this volume. Thirdly, we later made an additional call for excellent papers in order to broaden our horizon of international and regional studies to be included in this volume. Not only have we been granted generous financial support from both institutions for the academic con-ferences and for this volume but we have also benefited greatly from the unique opportunity to be part of the “Scholars in Residence” program of both institutions in the academic year 2010/2011. This residence pro-gram is a joint initiative between the Goethe-Institut and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen and promotes academic exchange in the form of visiting fellowships for researchers from Ger-many and abroad.

Bochum and Cracow, November 2011Maik Arnold & Przemysław Łukasik

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Introduction

Maik arnold and PrzeMysław łukasik

Europe and America in the Mirror – A Transatlantic Perspective

A vivid and more or less stable partnership between European and American countries is generally regarded as a key issue and particularly serious challenge in terms of cultural, economic, historical, political, and social developments and changes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This volume aims at bringing together various approaches, concepts, and analyses that are currently on the agenda in academic discussions in transatlantic and international relations studies. With a collection of essays from young scholars who have pursued their research in a wide-ranging field of interdisciplinary research, this volume not only contributes to intensifying important aspects of the study and analysis of transatlantic relations, but also reflects upon recent developments in different European regions that can only be understood in a global dimension such as anti-Americanism, popular culture and media, con-temporary regionalist movements, and secularization in modern socie-ties. In all cases, the contributors’ findings and research perspectives shape not only the content of this book, but in many respects develop an innovative understanding of transatlantic and international relations, helping us to gain important new insights into this specific relationship. But before we outline the volume’s subject matter, we need to grasp the meanings and significances, qualities and contents of the relationship between Europe and America.

The word ‘transatlantic relations’ can be understood here as an umbrella term that refers to different fields of practice and research on cultural, economic, historic, political, and social relations between countries, nations, and regions (or groups of these) across the Atlantic.

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Through the extensive use of different materials like travelogues, memo-ires, literary and political essays, movies, and business correspondences, this term is closely intertwined with the long history of former one-way (and later two-way) cultural exchange, transfer, and competition between Western European countries and the U.S. from the very beginning of the early modern era (e.g., Anglo-American, Euro-American, German-American relations, etc.; cf. Endy 1998; Rapson 1971; Rausch 2006; Trommler and McVeigh 1985). Comprehensive cultural encounters and mutual recognition has always been shaped by optimistic and pessimis-tic views, as well as continuously challenged by perceived stereotypes of the ‘New and Old Europe’ (e.g., Barclay and Glaser-Schmidt 1997). In addition, we also have to keep in mind that early European relations with America were initiated amongst others on colonialist, mercantilist, and national interests and with, by all means, exploitative motives and goals. Mutual perception has been overshadowed not only by dissent but also by common interests. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, under the label ‘Americanization’ (if we can use it as an analytical neu-tral term) the American dominance and power to influence and control cultural, economic, political, and societal developments and changes in Europe also became increasingly important for the European recep-tion tradition (Rausch 2006). After the end of the Cold War, several events and occasions challenged European-American relations once again: international terrorism, long-running military interventions e.g., in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East, financial and economic fluctuations and several crises. Nowadays, transatlantic relations are premised on global economic and political partnership, collaborative actions and the enforcement of Western cultural values (Dorman and Kaufman 2011: 2-3). More recently, Germany and Poland have also moulded themselves as new and more self-assured leaders and agents in European Union policy and international affairs. As we can see, ten-sions, diversions, and conversions on both sides of the Atlantic have their origins in a deep ambivalence that can be best understood as a pas-sionate ‘love-hate relationship’.

Besides this, there is no necessity to reduce transatlantic relations solely to relations between the U.S. and Western European countries, nations, and organizations. Certainly for the contributors to this volume

Maik Arnold and Przemysław Łukasik

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it may be more appropriate to accept a broader terminology, including also other countries (e.g., Italy, Mexico, and Poland) as well as the Euro-pean Union as an inter-governmental organization and Europe as a ‘cul-tural entity’. The study of the role of nations, countries, and cultures and the relationships between organizations, institutions, and corporations is regularly considered as a subject matter for political science that is best characterized by its great interest in analyzing ‘international relations’ policies with regard to cross-cultural and transatlantic perspectives. Apart from this, we would like to draw attention to various other fields of practice and research, e.g., economic developments, international work relations, societal implications of ecological sustainability poli-cies, popular culture and media studies, historic analyses, and, last but not least, the socio-cultural aspects of regionalist movements and secularization processes in Europe. All in all, this volume presents more of an holistic approach with both a global and a regional focus than a complete story with all possible facets.

An Outline of the Present Volume

The shared interest in understanding Europe and America as embedded in a transatlantic relationship constitutes the common ground for all of the contributions to the present volume. While the authors approach and explore this relationship (as well as the European and American self-interpretations) from different perspectives and towards different outcomes – depending on the content areas, research perspectives, and regional and cultural focus – several coexisting themes and reoccurring topics can be identified that provide evidence for current trends and developments in the larger field of transatlantic studies and international relations. These different angles and the volume’s coverage are illustra-ted in Table 1.

The top section of the table presents various areas of research in transatlantic relations studies. As can be seen, most of the topics are considered in more than one chapter. Issues in international relations and identity formation are of paramount importance in this field of research. The middle section gives an overview in terms of research

Introduction

12

perspectives. In this volume, cultural, sociological, and political rese-arch perspectives are predominant and this also corresponds with the literature in this field. Read vertically, this table shows how important joint interdisciplinary approaches are and how much mutual influences from various academic fields can enhance the debate. The table’s bottom

Table 1: Overview of the Volume’s Subject Matter

Chapters

HistoryEconomy

and PoliticsDevelopments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Content Area

International Relations • • • • • • •

European Integration • • •

Collective Identity • • • • • • • • • •

Ecological Sustainability •

Work Relations •

Contemporary Culture • • • •

Secularization •

Research Perspectives

Historical • • • • •

Cultural • • • • • • •

Economic • • • •

Political • • • • • • •

Sociological • • • • • • •

Regions, Societies, Countries

European Union/ Europe • • •

Germany • • • • • • •

Italy •

Mexico •

Poland •

U.S. • • • • • • •


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section provides an inventory of the volume according to the regional, societal, and cultural focuses. The majority of the essays concentrate on the relations between Germany and the U.S., but also other regions and countries from Europe and North America are brought into discussion, e.g., Italy, Mexico, and Poland. Again reading the table vertically, we can observe that most of the chapters extensively employ cross-cultural comparisons and analyses.

These thematic, interdisciplinary, and geographic orientations and positions also serve to structure the present volume into three main parts. After this introductory essay, in the first section of the volume, two essays make an attempt to reframe the history of American-Ger-man relations and transatlantic affairs between U.S., Germany, and the European Union. First, Przemysław Łukasik and Maik Arnold pinpoint in a narrative historical analysis the collective aspirations and cultural differences between the U.S. and Germany while incorporating the two national allegories of Sam and Germania. Based on seven literary characters from famous William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, the authors elaborate both historical and socio-cultural explanations for the relationship under investigation, each representing an imagination of a story of ‘love and hate’. For a methodical approach, an interpretative historical research perspective is chosen to transfer the meaning and focal points from the literary level of Shakespeare’s texts to an informed historical and socio-cultural substantiation. Like the majority of histo-rical studies in transatlantic research in general, Peter Pichler explores in his essay the metaphoric narratives of ‘friendship’ and ‘partnership’ as two side of the same coin, based on a recent historical analysis of the relationship between the U.S. and the European Union. Inspired by Michel Foucault’s theory of ‘governmentality’, Pichler questions the connecting master narrative of the two aforementioned historiographies as a specific network of power. The deconstruction of the historic gene-sis of transatlantic power networks after 1945 gives us new insights into the European integration process which cannot be understood as a unique European achievement but as a social construct that has arisen from extensive political discourse.

Anyone who is interested in the meaning of recent financial policies and reactions to the global financial crises of 2008 and the discourses

Introduction

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and debate about it will have to reassess transatlantic relations and inter-national affairs not only with regards to history but also to the recent economic and political developments on the global agenda. Therefore, the first two essays in this second section present an in-depth, insightful, and profound analysis of the global economic crisis on both sides of the Atlantic. As can be observed in the heated debates, relations have recent - ly entered into the turbulence of what may be termed love-and-hate affairs, especially in terms of German-American ties. An assessment of the U.S. and German economic situation seems to unveil not only diffe-rences of political and economic causes and conditions of the crises, but the question of how to take the ‘right’ responses and actions to prevent future damage to the global financial system. In order to describe the current status quo of the U.S. economy and to discuss the causes and directions of change for an economic rival in the global order, Przemy-sław Furgacz deals with the impacts and outcomes of the recent finan-cial crises in 2008 which still considerably shape both U.S. and world economic policies today. The evidence is striking and puts enormous pressure on the actions that need to be undertaken by the Federal Rese-rve Bank and the U.S. government: reduction of high budget deficits and of the highest level of debt at federal, state, and household level ever, as well as non-inflationary actions with regard to the dollar as the global reserve currency. Yet not every measure taken is reasonable and the mechanism of quantitative easing of dollar supply, heavily criticized by the German finance minister, will inevitably lead to future efforts. Conversely, Germany has also been attacked, as Anna Tomaszczyk points out, not so much for ‘jumpstarting its economy’ by means of several stimulus packages (as the U.S. also did), but because of its crisis management policies that recklessly risk the stability and recovery of the world’s economy, promote global financial market regulations, and reveal disagreements over appropriate political strategies. To borrow the title from Shakespeare’s comedy ‘Much Ado about Nothing’, Tomasz-czyk asks what one may conclude from these two analyses and what one may learn about the financial and political disputes between the U.S. and Germany on a transatlantic relations level. Although there has been disagreement and tension in the actions to be taken in order to deal with the global financial crisis, there has been ‘no clear coalition building


15

against the U.S.’ (Tomaszczyk) as there was previously over the Iraq question, but Germany reveals a more self-confident side in pursuing its policies and making its position plausible to others.

In addition, the two other essays in the second section are also con-cerned with economic and political developments, but also include ele-ments of theory-building approaches. Two contributors make attempts to adapt two sociological theories, Max Weber’s distinction between the ‘communal’ and ‘associative’ relationship to climate change policy (Annika Arnold) and Anthony Giddens’ groundbreaking work on ‘structuration’ to work relations in ‘expatriate communities’ (Martina Maletzky). Both, it should be noted, have recently become predomi-nant research perspectives in cross-cultural and international relations studies. The essay from Annika Arnold focuses on climate change poli-cies and intercultural differences between the U.S. and Germany. She suggests in her article that the increase in global warming has not only become a major societal, political, and economic issue on the global agenda, but may also put pressure on any attempt to seek common gro-und in overcoming different cultural expectations, breaking seemingly existing political barriers, and strengthening cultural similarities in cross-cultural exchange. Weber’s theoretical concept is applied here not on an individual level but on a national cultural level, meaning that ecological sustainability is a serious challenge with what communities were commonly faced worldwide on the local and governmental level. One such issue is the enforcement of the ‘precautionary principle’ as already summarized by Wallace S. Broecker (1975) and which “allows for freedom in human affairs, albeit freedom tempered by judgment; and ecological ethics require that those who are consuming and polluting the most may have to slow down and allow those who are consuming and polluting the least to attain a higher standard of living” (Gutiérrez 2011: 1). Furthermore, in her essay, Martina Maletzky is also concerned with the relevance and significance of cultural differences, but concen-trates in addition on highlighting another important topic in internatio-nal relations studies: the cross-border activities of German expatriates from different industrial sectors and personnel mobility of multi- and international companies in Mexico. Giddens’ (1979: 66) theory of ‘structuration’ is applied here to analyze the implications and outcomes

Introduction

16

of a continuity or transformation of structures in complex and adaptive systems. Hereby, Maletzky refers especially to social structures in work relations between German expatriates and their Mexican counterparts which are biased by stereotypical (pre-) conceptions and perceptions, self-concepts and concepts of others, influence interaction processes in specific working environments and contexts, and provide different opportunities for cultural adaption and adjustment.

Based on a heterogeneous sample of studies, the third section of this volume contains four essays that focus on the social, cultural, and religious developments and changes in Europe that are shaped by recent international geopolitical shifts and are, in this respect, particularly relevant to cultural and international relations studies. In Przemysław Łukasik’s essay, a critical attitude to German-American relations is reconstructed on the basis of an historical analysis of the German antidemocratic ‘anti-Americanism’ in public opinion polls, political discourses, and visual media (e.g., caricatures) from the 18th Century to today. Unlike criticism which still leaves room for debate or dialog, anti-Americanism can be understood as a reaction on a stereotypical and prejudicial level to the ‘supreme’ social, economic, and political institu-tions, tradition, and value system of the U.S. nation state. What we can learn from this analysis is that an anti-American attitude has been pre-valent in public discourses between Germany and the U.S. over almost two hundred years. Besides others, the author suggests that today’s anti-Americanism does not primarily focus anymore on a critique of capitalism, but also refers to both a united German national identity and its integration in the system of the European Union. In addition, Martin Gloger approaches the common ‘capitalist spirit’, not so much from a sociological and economic perspective but from a narratological point of view, identifying fundamental differences between North American societies and European imaginations and representations in popular film culture. In doing so, he seeks to answer the question as to how the late financial and capitalist crisis has emerged, been communicated, and portrayed in German and American coming-of-age-cinema, e.g., Generation X movies. Thus, Gloger’s comparative perspective is not directed at cultural differences on the governmental or societal level as presented in the other essays but to life stories and coping strategies. On


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the basis of these strategies, the main protagonists seek to appropriate, adopt, and incorporate them into their own life history and self-concepts (e.g., to gain economic and social prosperity). Gloger’s analysis leads to some interesting findings: compared to American film productions, German Generation X cinema primarily considers social facts such as deprivation and unemployment, the myths of being rich and of being at the right place in society. In contrast to U.S. cinema, the motif of the self-confident subject that is able to liberate themselves from misera-ble living conditions and lower economic status by means of deviant but challenging courses of action, such as by being an entrepreneur, is almost non-existent in German movies.

The last two essays in the third section focus on regional develop-ments reassessed in a ‘glocal’ perspective. The essay of Gala Rebane considers regional identity-building processes in Northern Italy that have become subject to revision and modification due to a break with established national history. These kind of ‘invented’ narratives have introduced new and in some respect innovative collective historiogra-phies in recent times. However, it also shows us that globalization and regionalization are two sides of the same coin. Recently, regionalist movements from the Northern regions have become of paramount importance because of the rebirth of territorial politics (partly supported by the party of Lega Nord) within the Italian nation state and by putting forward different forms of cultural and collectively shared identitary narratives, such as Celtic heritage. Rebane’s reconstructions of this par-ticular collective identity myth are both stimulating and intriguing: with the aid of a description of the exclusionary rhetorics and disintegration attitudes of these regionalist movements as well as by means of display-ing its ‘mythopoetic’ symbolism (e.g., the three-rayed triskelion) she is able to characterize the ‘Celticity’ in Northern Italy as a new localized phenomena both to the Italian nation and to Europe. Last but not least, Maik Arnold explores in his essay the empirical evidence and validity of a perhaps ongoing secularization process in Poland. In accordance with José Casanova’s (1994) hypothesis that a secularized Europe needs to be confronted with ‘special cases’ of ‘over and under secularization’, the author argues that the ‘causa Polonia semper fidelis’ shows us so far an exception to the rule in Eastern European transition countries

Introduction

18

and in Europe alike. Since the normative theory of secularization is not very helpful for an explanation of this special case, a cultural historical approach is chosen to answer the question of how and what develop-ments and changes have led to such a high percentage of committed Roman Catholics in Poland and also left behind tangible traces in the European integration process.

Finally, we may assume that transatlantic and international studies are aware of such a rich variety of concepts, findings, research perspec-tives, and geographical focuses, but we should also be careful not to spread too much optimism. We might have cultivated and developed a kind of friendly interdisciplinary playground here and there, while each of the toys, games, and rules of the games used could, perhaps, cause little provocation and irritation tomorrow. The most we can say now is that the future of transatlantic relations studies ‘goes by many names’ (Victor Hugo) and, as with every undertaking, its outcomes will depend on the standards we assign, discuss, and decide today.


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