lunes, 25 de febrero de 2013

MERKEL´S METHOD

A Political Analysis- Germany’s first Chancellor from the East





By  Fiona Zumtobel
Feb. 2013


Although in Descartes, ‘Discourse on Method’ in 1637, wrote, “Good sense is the most evenly shared thing in the world, for each of us…” stating that reason is naturally equal in all human beings, he nonetheless acknowledges that to get to the truth, you need diverse lines of reasoning, and better evidence/ data. It is not enough to have a good line or mind, one has to conduct it well to reach the truth.
What this research paper will try to do is to improve both your and my lines of reasoning through the qualitative method of biographical research.
Biographical method is a type of scientific research that aims to answer a particular question, and through your findings it allows you to make a particular inference.
With the use of biographical method, one could obtain culturally specific information about values, opinion, behaviors and social contexts about particular of particular social groups or even populations.
I want to analyze how Angela Merkel’s youth in East Germany has shaped her personal character in the political field.
 I want to embed the life story of Angela Merkel with a wider historical context. The underlying issue is that through Merkel scientific mind Germany has been able to take rational decisions in European and world politics.
The paper consists of four separate sections. The first explains the biographical approach. The second looks at Angela Merkel’s biography. The third connects Merkel’s past to her current political standpoint. The fourth section illustrates the sampling error calculation within my research.
Through the use non-standardized interviews I was able to critically test the existing bias of my interviewees.
Descartes sacred rule is to never accept anything that is true, until evidently so. Therefore, with this research paper, I do not want readers to accept this as the truth, but merely as a possible truth.


Origins of Qualitative Method
The Chicago school is the founding father of sociology. Sociology is the study of social human behaviour. Sociology is a social science that generates knowledge through pratical research methods and close critical analysis.
 The biographical method was their dominant approach. The method was based on personal life records.
The method was very counter-intuitive as it took a series of criminals, homosexuals and prostitutes as cases/samples instead of ordinary people. By sympathizing with them, rather than judging them they were able to collect personal documents, interviews, letters and diaries. This facilitated to obtain completely holistic results.


Advantages of the biographical method
This method is advantageous for the researcher because data gathering is personally meaningful, it does not rely on funding, and you are able to write about something that is real but most importantly it is the only type of research where you can make a moral judgment. The benefits of this method for the interviewees is that it gives a voice to these people, it makes them feel important, like they can generate something through their lines of reasoning. It gives interviewees the opportunity to teach and allows them to enjoy speaking to people out of their “circle”.
For Readers, it is the most exciting type of research, as it is the closest form of fiction.


Disadvantages of the biographical method
It requires a lot of patience, and you experience a lot of rejection.
It is difficult for the researcher to randomly select interviewees; in particular if you find yourself in a country that may not know so much about the person you wish to collect information from.  It is difficult to make a meaningful inference. The sampling error will always be very high because we ask open questions, instead of closed ones.


Background Of Angela Merkel

Angela Dorothea Kasner was born in Hamburg on July 17th 1954. Her father, Horst Kasner (1926-2011) was a Lutheran minister, who studied teology at the university of Heidelberg. Merkel’s mother Herlind (1928) was a born in Danzig and taught of Latin and English. Angela has two younger siblings, Marcus who was born in 1957 and Irene who was born in 1964.The Protestant Church asked Horst to move from Hamburg to Templin; situated in 50 Miles north of Berlin, which is East Germany. Merkels father spent his career in collaboration with the East German state to try to tranquilize the recently divided country. The family moved to Templin when Angela was only three months old. In 1961, when the Berlin Wall was erected, the family was closed off from all the developments and liberties that were put in place in Germany after the world war II.
Angela was a brilliant student, receiving prizes for her Russian and mathematics accomplishments. She learned Russian fluently at school. She was a participant in the Free German Youth Movement. It was never told that Merkel had non-conformist views on the communist party in East Germany. In an interview with Rolls however she stated that, “One learned to keep quite. That was one of the strategies of survival, as is today”. Angela finished her secondary school with a grade point average of 1.0, which is 100% in the German school system. She would of liked to become a translator, but her father profession denied her that. Instead, she studied Physics at the Leipzig University from the years 1973-1978. Whilst attenting university, Merkel worked at the central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. In 1977, at the age of 23 Angela Kasner married Ulrich Merkel. Only 5 years later the couple divorced, without having produced any offspring.

Throughout the 80’s significant changes took place in both Germany and the Soviet Union.
Merkel supported the « Glasnost » movement, which supported democracy and openess. When the berlin Wall came down in 1989, Merkel left her scientific career and began her political one. Merkel joined the Demokratischer Aufbruch and supported the reunification of Germany, which was introduced by the wave of capitalism, brought about by the United States. Consequent of East Germany’s first elections Merkel became a press spokeswoman for the pre-unification interim government under leader Lothar de Maiziére.  Once Unification occurred in 1990, the Demokratischer Aufbruch was integrated into the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), The party which would one day rule Germany by the side of Merkel herself.






Analysis- Connecting Merkel’s Past to her present Politics

Merkel is the leader of the Christian Democratic Party in Germany, which was founded at the end of World War II in 1945, whose ideology is both democracy and liberal conservatism. Its political position is center right.
Angela Merkel entered the political realm when the berlin Wall came down, in 1989. She fought for the unification of Germany. In a similar way, she is fighting for the unification of Europe today, by declaring the importance of the Eurozone avoiding the Greek exit. For Merkel, the Greek-German relationship it is more than simply a monetary union, it is a political union. It is nonetheless also clear, as the leader of Germany’s Economic Powerhouse, she understands that will the euro-break up the Export Superpower would fall from its chair in a matter of second.
Is it as Thomas Hobbes formulated a problem of justice and sovereignty? Where sovereignty is always put before justice and Merkel only wants to save the Eurozone to stay in control? Perhaps. Nonetheless it is clear that Merkel’s upbringing in East Germany, has taught her the grave consequences both economically and socially of living in a disunity. The constant need for unity may be a deeply imbedded psychological value that she adopted in her youth.

Merkel’s decision-making process, rules out dramatic and speedy fixes. Her approach is that of a scientist. As a scientist, patience, close observation and analysis are the key to success. A scientist learns that a quick and unsought experiment will most probably lead to a failed one. In science, you collect your data, either through observation or through experiments. You analyze what will work, and what will not work.
For Merkel Communism, did not work, she stated in an interview with Rolls, that in the East, no one pushed to excel.
As soon as Merkel took office, they named her after Margaret Thatcher  “Die Eisen Frau” (The Iron Lady) because it was her goal to increase productivity and raise employment through the deregulation of markets. It is a pure fact that economies under communism have failed to meet the levels efficiency and innovation like those countries under capitalism, perhaps, with the exception of China today, who may meet and exceed efficiency levels, but at a very high social cost and constant human right violations. Merkel’s fight for economic success may also have come from her experience of living under an inefficient one.

Many people in Germany critique Merkel for being authoritarian, dispassionate and too much of a centrist. Although many people respect her, there are few people that show amazement towards her.
All her critiques are very closely related to the political ambience she was grew up in. Communists and socialist had to be authoritarian figures in this recently confused and separated country. The East needed to erect strong authorities to prevent social revolutions, and chaos from further dismantling the new ideology. Signs of protests would only be signs of weakness within newly founded system. The Eurozone is in crisis, and when, strong authorities keep the system from collapsing as a whole.
The strongest European nation was the power to decide upon Greek and Europe’s fate. It has always been survival of the fittest.
If Angela Merkel had mixed sentiments about the Greek Exit, then other Nations would not know what to think and what to do. Many Nations take Germany as a role model and therefore agree with that Merkel has to say.
People at the too must have clear and precise views because otherwise the system is bound to collapse. A scientist cannot have many different hypotheses for one case. It needs to have one clear hypothesis and test it. If the hypothesis fails then it is still useful as a guideline for what not to do. We sometimes need to be reminded of what works and what does not work to prevent repeated mistakes. Merkel most certainly lived within an area where politically, socially and economically the system failed. Her past observations and experiments has taught her that the Greek exit is out of the question.

Another critique by both German citizens and by Europeans is that Angela Merkel fails to place strong men at her side in Politics. Although her bibliography tells us very little about her relationships with her husband or her brother, or even father it is, nonetheless clear as the first female German Chancellor in history it is only normal to adopt some sort of a protective instinct. For the first time in history, a woman can rule Germany. Most especially given her roots, Polish mother, and upbringing in an East Germany. Her fear of powerful men comes as a natural psychological instinct, which was embedded in our culture as result of sexual prejudice in the past. 

Conclusion

My hypothesis argues that Angela Merkel’s upbringing in East Germany has shaped her to become the most suitable Chancellor to lead Germany through these difficult times.
Through the method of observation, and data gathering, I have come to confirm my hypothesis. Angela Merkel has learnt through her youth in East Germany that in hard times you cannot take quick and easy decisions to see successful results. There is no such thing as an easy road, in the European crisis. Angela Merkel has learnt, through her experience as a physician and chemist to adopt a scientific approach to politics, where close observation and analysis can lead to stronger results in the future.
In the Eurozone, she acknowledges the long and tough times in the present to promote a long run solution in the future.
Merkel’s authority helps calm chaos in difficult times, and her centricity gives opportunity to diverse ideas and opinions in the political arena. Her “impassionate” character as critics call her, I believe can only aid her to overcome any bias or prejudice in the political arena.
The inference I am making about Angela Merkel in politics, is that sometimes different figures from the different sex, and from growing up in different political atmospheres and scientific educational background can help you strengthen the right political environment. Merkel’s communist experience can help her prioritize what political, economical and social values be must pursue and fight for.
Her gender may help prevent too quick and irrational decisions, unlike George W. Bush.
 Most importantly her scientific background will help identify the importance of analysis and careful study of particular events, where the wrong decisions through globalization affect every nation on the globe.