Friday April 16, 2021
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Online Zoom Meeting
Dear Colleagues:
In March of 1890, the young Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany forced Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to resign his post. Bismarck had guided the expansion of Prussia to create a unified German state as Prussian Prime Minister from 1862 on and had served as German Chancellor since 1870. In a famous cartoon in Punch, Bismarck’s dismissal was described as “dropping the pilot” who had been guiding the ship of state. Although it took quite a while for the ship to spectacularly run aground through the Kaiser’s more aggressive foreign policies, Bismarck’s dismissal is viewed as an example of the risks of losing a long-serving, steady hand on the tiller of the state.
Which brings us to Angela Merkel. She has served as Chancellor since November of 2005, through a remarkable series of challenges such as the financial crash, the refugee surge of 2015-16, the associated rise of right-wing extremism, tensions within the European Union, more aggressive policies from Russia, and the Trump administration. In 2018 she announced that she would not seek a fifth term as Chancellor after the 2021 General Election, which will be held on September 26. Ever since, the question of who will succeed Merkel, and with what consequences, has loomed large in both German and European politics.
Her Christian Democratic party (CDU) has certainly had trouble replacing her. When Merkel announced she would not continue as Chancellor after 2021, she also stepped down as party leader. But Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, her successor chosen in December of 2018, announced in 2020 that she would resign as leader, and so Armin Laschet, chosen in January, will lead the CDU into September’s election. Both the 2018 and 2021 leadership elections showed that the CDU is closely divided between a faction that want to maintain Merkel’s more “centrist” policies and a faction that wants to move right in order to capture votes from the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe, nationalist Alternative for Germany party. Last month’s state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate showed that the CDU may be vulnerable to the same forces that have weakened the long-time postwar center-right and center-left parties in other countries, such as France and Italy.
As we wait to see what comes after Merkel, it seems a good time, as Ken Ledford says, to “draw a balance” on her tenure in office – both to understand her leadership and consider the prospects going forward.
Signing In
This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.
If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtde6sqTkiG9X3SAo_p01dOABijSr7lRXj
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Kenneth Ledford is a social historian of modern Germany, from 1789 to the present. His research interests focus primarily upon processes of class formation, particularly the emergence and decline of the profound influence of the educated, liberal middle-class of education, the Bildungsbürgertum. The salient ideology of this social group was classical liberalism, whose vocabulary both shaped and was shaped by the primary social institution of the Bürgertum, law and the legal order. Professor Ledford has written about German lawyers in private practice, and his present work is on a book about the Prussian judiciary between 1848 and 1918; in all of his research, a clearer analysis of the complex interplay among state, civil society, and the ideology of the state ruled by law (Rechtsstaat) remains the goal. Professor Ledford’s teaching interests extend beyond German history since 1789 to include the history of the European middle classes, the history of the professions, European legal history, other processes of class formation including German and European labor history, as well as the history of European international relations and diplomatic history.
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
April 23: Depression’s Past and Future. With Jonathan Sadowsky, Ph.D., Theodore J. Castele Professor of History.
April 30: The Republican Party and Demographic Change. With Girma Parris, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science.
May 7: Defending Disability Insurance. With Kathy Ruffing, former Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. |
