Transformation Research in East Germany: Institutions, Knowledge and Power

Abstract

Twelve years after the reunification of Germany, one might expect the transformation of the East German science system to be finished. This would include the resolution of the early conflicts arising, for example, from the closing down of research institutions, massive staff reductions of up to 60 per cent, dismissals of professors due to incompetence and political misconduct, and transfer of the institutional rules of the science system from West Germany. In the dominant discourse, this process has been described as the necessary modernisation of the science system in East Germany (Kocka and Mayntz, 1998; Mayntz, 1994a; 1994b; 1995; for an exception, see Pasternack, 1996; 2001a; 2001b). The main focus of the modernisation argument is on the ‘objective’ requirements of the transferred institutions and the logic of the system, as it functioned in pre-1990 West Germany.