Sociology in Germany After 1990

Abstract

AbstractWhile far-reaching intellectual influences changed the face of sociology in the 1980s, the development of sociology in the 1990s was first and foremost shaped by a concrete social and political transformation, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Soon after the German reunification, East German sociology almost entirely disappeared and West German sociology extended to the East. The triumph of capitalist society fostered a brief comeback of modernization theory. As the system change came along with severe social problems, theories and research projects focusing on social exclusion, precarious work, and xenophobia moved to the center stage of sociological thinking. The first decade of this century again brought about major changes for society and sociology. Market logic increasingly dominated social and education policy; economic thinking and its involvement in political affairs was on the rise and may have contributed to a marginalization of the influence of sociology on policy making. Characteristic is a further specialization and differentiation, visible through the multiplication of special sociologies. The landscape of sociological theory in Germany continued to change: Earlier, grand theories were dominant, whereas nowadays a trend toward sociological diagnoses of contemporary society can be observed. Overall, contemporary sociology in Germany can be characterized by the following features: (1) historically and philosophically informed sociological theory has always been and still is important, (2) German sociology lacks self-confidence compared to US-American sociology, (3) German sociology has a critical attitude and a strong tradition of public sociology, (4) self-critical debates and internal controversies have always existed and still persist in the field of German sociology. Most recently, this could be observed in the splitting off of the Academy of Sociology from the German Sociological Association and the accompanying debates.