Political Epistemics

The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism

Andreas Glaeser

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780226297941
  9780226297934
• eBook ISBN:
  9780226297958
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: Social Sciences

What does the durability of political institutions have to do with how actors form knowledge about them? Andreas Glaeser investigates this question in the context of a fascinating historical case: socialist East Germany's unexpected self-dissolution in 1989. His analysis builds on extensive in-depth interviews with former secret police officers and the dissidents they tried to control as well as research into the documents both groups produced. In particular, Glaeser analyzes how these two opposing factions' understanding of the socialist project came to change in response to countless everyday experiences. These investigations culminate in answers to two questions: why did the officers not defend socialism by force? And how was the formation of dissident understandings possible in a state that monopolized mass communication and group formation? He also explores why the Stasi, although always well informed about dissident activities, never developed a realistic understanding of the phenomenon of dissidence.

Out of this ambitious study, Glaeser extracts two distinct lines of thought. On the one hand he offers an epistemic account of socialism's failure that differs markedly from existing explanations. On the other hand he develops a theory—a sociology of understanding—that shows us how knowledge can appear validated while it is at the same time completely misleading.

Index

This index lists authors only if they are either directly discussed in the text or referenced repeatedly.

Abbott, Andrew, 8, 55n48, 56n49, 178, 209n1, 241, 244n30

action-reaction effect flows: definition, 29–30; corroboration as, 206–7, 226; recognition as, 177, 219–20; resonance as, 196, 230; resources necessary for, 40; understandings as moments in, 37–40. See also institutions

activists (dissident): early experiences, 351–74; family background, 351, 364, 371, 384, 418–19; generational changes, 438–39; impact of Western youth-cultural lifestyle, 355–64, 366, 367–68; living conditions, 380–81; political life after unification, 347–50; prison experiences, 386, 426n28, 429–31, 433, 445–46, 458; reading preferences, 382–84; as German bourgeois revolutionaries, 348n12; schisms in groups, 444–46. See also Bohley, Bärbel; Böttger, Martin; Grimm, Peter; Harembski, Beate; Hirsch, Ralf; Klein, Thomas; Kukutz, Irena; Lengsfeld, Vera; Poppe, Gerd; Poppe, Ulrike; Reich, Jens; Rüddenklau, Wolfgang; Sengespeick-Roos, Christa; Templin, Wolfgang; Weißhuhn, Reinhard

ad hocing, 229

agency: definition, 42; effect of authorities on, 179; fetishization of understandings as enhancing, 42; limited by history (Marx), 74–75; sense of changing in life course, 361; political, 127–28, 332–33, 413–14, 416–18, 428, 450, 550–57, 564–66; socialist theory enabled, 72, 76–77, 94, 96; understandings as basis, 40–43, 38, 456. See also politics

Aktuelle Kamera. See German Democratic Republic (GDR); mass media: electronic

alienation, 34–35, 561–62

allegiance: measures of, 155–56; rituals of, 370, 373, 382. See also self-objectification

Althusser, Louis, 38–39

anthropology: linguistic, 12, 26, 39; philosophical, 10, 10n13, 41–42n40

antifascism: as credential, 2, 300–306, 307–9, 384n38; resonating with officers’ war experience, 262–71; as state-ideology, 306–8

articulation, projective: definition, 29–30; through bridging institutions, 79–80; through the circulation of discourse, 130–32, 383, 448–53; means of po...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Understandings, Politics, and Institutions
• I. Socialism as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy—The Party’s Project
• II. Contingencies and Dynamics of Understanding—The Theory
• III. Becoming Socialist Men—The Stasi Officers
• IV. Disenchantment, Disengagement, Opposition—The Dissidents
• V Policing Understandings—Reproducing Misunderstandings
• Conclusions: Paralyzing Uncertainties
• Notes
• References
• Index