The Hobbled State

Fractured Politics in Contemporary Germany
Germanys moral and political dilemma, as a nation unwilling to assume a leadership role in the international community, for fear of becoming dominant, is well rehearsed. Mark Vail traces Germanys reluctant embrace of power from its state formation in the nineteenth century to its current reconsideration of national identity.
The narrative of postwar Germanys moral and political dilemma, as a nation unwilling to assume a leadership role in the international community, despite its size and economic might, for fear of becoming dominant, is well rehearsed. Germanys postwar power has been bounded by the rules and requirements of international institutions and its own constitution. Economic prosperity quickly became a proxy for the conventional exercise of power. Yet, recent crises have made the countrys ambivalence to power difficult to sustain. Scholzs declaration of a Zeitenwende (end of an era) la