Between Continuity and Change: Ostpolitik and the Constructivist Approach Revisited

Abstract

To social constructivists, West German Ostpolitik, as implemented by the social-liberal government of Chancellor Willy Brandt in the early 1970s, is an excellent example of norms and identities influencing foreign policy. According to constructivists, Ostpolitik involved a continuous social process in which decision-makers were increasingly guided by norms such as ‘peace’, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘Europeanness’. However, constructivist analyses of Ostpolitik remain too abstract to answer the question of why West German reunification policy was first diverted down an international side track, before subsequently taking the lead in international détente and shaking up the political status quo on the national and international stages. Only when the constructivist emphasis on the influence of norms is allied with more traditional decision-making models of bureaucratic and government politics, with their focus on strategic interests, does it become clear that the answer lies in the dynamics of the ongoing political struggle in West German party politics.