The Mainstream Narrative of Franco-German Relations and the Value of ‘Diffusion’ as a Complementary Analytical Framework

Abstract

This chapter details the conceptual and analytical reflections started in the introduction. First, it provides a state of the art of the Anglophone political science scholarship on Franco-German relations. It is argued that most of the existing scholarship adheres to a teleological account of Franco-German relations. According to this narrative, ever since the split of the Carolingian Empire, the French kingdom and the German states composing the Holy Roman Empire have developed rather autonomously and mostly in a relationship of rivalry and even armed conflict. Only after the catastrophic losses of the two world wars, the leaders of France and Germany have ‘learnt’ to overcome ‘enmity’ and established ‘friendship’. Such a teleological account, however, is simplistic and overlooks the many instances in which the cross-border circulation of ideas and policies has modified each country’s perception and behaviour, especially in periods of inter-state conflict. In-depth historiographical accounts have shown how processes of cross-border mutual have influenced each country’s evolution in ways that would not have been occurred otherwise. The second part of the chapter presents the analytical framework used in this book to conceptualise the processes and impact of diffusion. The epistemological roots of diffusion research are summarised, going from nineteenth-century ethnographic research over twentieth-century sociology of innovation to twenty-first-century IR scholarship. The main conceptual insights of the IR debate on diffusion are discussed, as well as the specific definition of diffusion used in this book. Subsequently, drawing on the established IR scholarship, the main analytical tools to understand the process and impact of diffusion are detailed, including diffusion actors, diffusion channels, and diffusion mechanisms.