¹ This review essay could not cover all the current specialties of German political science. I decided, in particular, to leave out international and comparative studies while drawing the line toward sociology rather loosely. The following colleagues generously responded with suggestions for books to include in this review: Kendall Baker, Klaus von Beyme, David Conradt, Charles Foster, Wilhelm Hennis, John Herz, Hans D. Klingemann, P. C. Ludz, Ralph Mendershausen, Franz Pappi, and Kurt Sontheimer.

² “The Development of Empirical Political Science Research in West Germany,” Comparative Political Studies, 6, No. 3 (10, 1973), 380–391 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. the simpleminded dichotomy between empirical political science and historical-institutional-philosophical approaches underlying the content analysis of Pfotenhauer, David, “Conceptions of Political Science in Germany and the US, 1960–1969,” Journal of Politics, 34, No. 2 (1972), 555–601 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ For further names and details, see Ludz, Peter Christian, “Focus on Human Behavior: The present state of sociology and political science in the Federal Republic of Germany,” Bildung und Wissenschaft, No. 10–74(e), available through Inter-Nationes, Bonn Google Scholar.

⁴ Among von Beyme, 's recent books are Die politische Elite in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (München: Piper, 1971)Google Scholar; Interessengruppen in der Demokratie (München: Piper, 1974)Google Scholar; books on Italy and on Spain, and his monumental comparative study of European parliamentary systems. See also his new series of translations from German political science with Sage Publications.

⁵ Von Beyme, , Die politischen Theorien der Gegenwart (Munich: Piper, 1972), esp. pp. 320–322 Google Scholar. To be sure, there is more separation than cross-connections among the three theoretical schools when we consider individual scholars and subfields and, especially, if we formulate the “approaches” and “basic concepts” with the caution befitting a sociology of sociology and political science.

⁶ “Demokratisierung, zur Problematik eines Begriffs,” reprinted in Hennis, , Die missverstandene Demokratie (Freiburg: Herder, 1973), 26–51, at pp. 26–27Google Scholar.

⁷ Hennis supplies a good sampling of citations from the press and notable documents, such as the Frankfurt (Friedeburg) memorandum of several professors concerning principles for a new university law and manifestoes of the German SDS (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund). See also the discussion in von Beyme, , Die politischen Theorien, pp. 210 and 218ffGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Hennis, p. 47. See also his Die deutsche Unruhe (Hamburg: C. Wegner, 1969)Google Scholar.

⁹ Demokratietheorie zwischen Utopie und Anpassung (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag, 1970), p. 23 Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 55. See also, for example, Agnoli, J. and Brückner, P., Die Transformation der Demokratie (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1968)Google Scholar, and Scharpf, , Die politischen Kosten des Rechtsstaates (Tübingen: Mohr, 1970)Google Scholar.

¹¹ See Naschold, Frieder, Organisation und Demokratie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969)Google Scholar, and, by the same author, Probleme der Demokratie (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1971)Google Scholar.

¹² See von Beyme, , Die politischen Theorien, pp. 218–220 Google Scholar.

¹³ Ibid., pp. 223–226.

¹⁴ Luhmann's, Niklas other writings include Theorie der Verwaltungswissenschaften (Berlin: Grote, 1966)Google Scholar, Funktionen und Folgen formaler Organisation (2nd ed., Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1972)Google Scholar, Rechtssoziologie (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1972)Google Scholar, Rechtssystem und Rechtsdogmatik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1974)Google Scholar, and others cited below.

¹⁵ Luhmann, , Soziologische Aufklärung, 3rd ed. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1973)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Luhmann, , Legitimation durch Verfahren (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1969)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ See especially Habermas's, Strukturwandel der Oeffentlichkeit, 3rd ed. (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1968)Google Scholar; Theorie und Praxis, Sozialphilosophische Studien, 3rd ed. (Luchterhand, 1969)Google Scholar, (available in English as Theory and Practice [Boston: Beacon Press, 1969]Google Scholar; Beacon, Press also published his Legitimation Crisis [1975])Google Scholar. See also his Erkenntnis und Interesse (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Habermas, , Protestbewegung und Hochschulreform (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969)Google Scholar; Technik und Wissenschaft als Ideologie, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969)Google Scholar; and Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (Hamburg: Zerschlagt das burgerliche Copyright, no date, 1969?)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Theorie der Gessellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1971)Google Scholar.

²⁰ See, for example, Franz Maciejewski, ed. Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie, Theorie-Diskussion, Supplement 2, Beitraege zur Habermas-Luhmann-Diskussion von Wolf-Dieter Narr et al. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974).

²¹ Since 1971 Habermas has been doing research and theoretical work on change and crisis in postindustrial societies at the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg together with several other representatives of the Frankfurt School. In these pleasant surroundings he is nonetheless painfully cut off from normal student and academic contacts. The University of Munich denied him a teaching appointment and has refused him the normal courtesies of academic cooperation.

²² Meaning, according to Luhmann, is not simply transmitted but mutually actualized in intersubjective communication. It is carefully distinguished from mere information and distinguished from simplistic models of communication. On the “reduction of social complexity,” see also Luhmann's, Vertrauen, Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexitaet (Stuttgart: Enke, 1968)Google Scholar.

²³ On Luhmann's concept of function, see his “Funktion und Kausalitaet” (1962), reprinted in Soziologische Aufklaerung, pp. 9ffGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ For a systematic review see also Busshoff, Heinrich, Systemtheorie als Theorie der Politik (Pullach: Verlag Dokumentation, 1975)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Luhmann, proposed this in Zweckbegriff und Systemrationaiitaet, lieber die Funktion von Zwecken in sozialen Systemen (Tuebingen: Mohr, 1968), p. 224 Google Scholar. Theories of crisis are particularly important to critical analytic theory as will be seen below.

²⁶ Luhmann, , Legitimation durch Verfahren, p. 32 Google Scholar. Earlier in the same book, the author speaks of a generalized willingness to accept even decisions of undetermined content within certain margins of tolerance.” Ibid., p. 28.

²⁷ Here Luhmann cannot pass up the temptation of describing in an aside the dogmatic and contentious nature of discussions in “supposedly free, democratic groups dedicated to the critique and reform of social ills.” Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie? p. 340 Google Scholar; see also pp. 391–392 and 399–401.

²⁸ On these young groups see below, and the sources cited in footnote 45.

²⁹ See Habermas's note “What Does a Crisis Mean Today? Legitimation Problems in Late Capitalism,” in Social Research (reprint), no date.

³⁰ Jaenicke, , ed., Herrschaft und Krise (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972)Google Scholar. This book is the outcome of a 1972 conference on “crises” in Berlin.

³¹ Habermas's use of analogy between the crisis of Spaetkapitalismus and the body's crisis or the “crisis” in Greek tragedy is hardly a tool of social science analysis.

³² A good guide through the current German literature is Guggenberger, Bernd, “Oekonomie und Politik – die neomarxistische Staatsfunktionenlehre,” Neue Politische Literatur (1974), 20, No. 4, pp. 425–471 Google Scholar whose work is discussed more fully below. See also von Beyme, , Die politischen Theorien, pp. 64–87 Google Scholar, and the sources cited there. Examples of this literature are von Braunmuehl, Claudia, ed., Probleme einer materialistischen Staatstheorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973)Google Scholar; Muller, Wolfgang and Neusuess, Christel, “Die Sozialstaetsillusion und der Widerspruch von Lohnarbeit und Kapital,” Sozialistische Politik II, (06, 1970), no. 6/7, pp. 4–67 Google Scholar; and Mandel, Ernest, Der Spaetkapitalismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972)Google Scholar.

³³ Guggenberger also suggests, as a third, in-between group, writers such as R. Miliband, N. Poulanzas, A. Gorz, P. Sweezy, and P. Baran.

³⁴ Guggenberger points out that their theories of West German imperialism and capitalism originated among the members of the Institute of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the East German Communist Party (SED) and that their advocacy by the Soviets, the SED, and the West German Communists (DKP) is strongly colored by the current popular front strategy.

³⁵ The avoidance of true democratization, of course, corresponds to the bureaucratic-authoritarian model of Soviet and East German socialism. See also Wirth, Margaret, Kapitalismustheorie in der DDR (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972)Google Scholar.

³⁶ Guggenberger covers them well in his Wem Nuetzt der Staat? Kritik der neomarxistischen Staatstheorie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1974), pp. 67–75 Google Scholar.

³⁷ As the author points out, there are significant links here with the theories of the state of Hermann Heller of the Weimar Republic whose writings have recently been reissued. Guggenberger, , Wem neutzt der Staat?, pp. 135–136, fn. 210 and 213 Google Scholar.

³⁸ Offe, , Strukturprobleme (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972)Google Scholar.

³⁹ The extraordinary spell which Marxism has cast over many young German intellectuals can be illustrated by an incident during a conference on comparative fascist movements in Bergen, Norway, in 1974. There was great puzzlement over the fact that in many fascist movements transport workers were among the few proletarians to join when a young German participant interjected: “I have a plausible explanation. These transport workers were at the intersection between the process of production and the process of circulation. Da musste doch etwas schiefgehen! (So something was bound to go wrong.)”

⁴⁰ See also the critical remarks of Fach, Wolfgang about Habermas's, “legitimation logic” in Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 3 (1974), 221ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Another one of the landmark debates Involving Habermas and the late Theodor Adorno was the discussion over the role of “positivism” in sociological method which pitted Karl Popper and Hans Albert against the Frankfurt School. See also Albert, Hans and Topitsch, Ernst, eds., Werturteilsstreit (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1971)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Schelsky, , Die Arbeit tun die anderen: Klassenkampf und Priesterherrschaft der Intellektuellen (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The author, among other things, accuses German political science and sociology of a one-sided emphasis on power and conflict research (especially peace research) rather than on democratic legitimacy, pp. 25–26.

⁴² Schelsky devotes considerable space in his book to a systematic description of seven categories of intellectuals, ranging from the technical and administrative intelligentsia, artists, social scientists, teachers, journalists, and public relations people to the priests of established religion, pp. 98–117.

⁴³ Parteiensystem in der Legitimationskrise, ed. Dittberner, Juergen and Ebbighausen, Rold (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1973), p. 31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁴ The introduction by Ebbighausen carefully puts the state of German party studies into the appropriate context of German postwar history and international comparative party studies, including the contributions of American scholars.

⁴⁵ The activities of the Young Socialists, as the paper about them points out, generally remained well within the traditional range of issues in the SPD, but strengthened the Old Left elements at the expense of the dominant center-right coalition which has supported the SPD leadership. On these young partisan organizations, see also Bilstein, Helmut et al., Jungsozialisten, Junge Union, Jungdemokraten (Opladen: Leske Verlag, 1971)Google Scholar. Attention should also be drawn to the excellent collection of materials on West German parties by Flechtheim, Ossip K., ed., Die Parteien in der Bundesrepublik (Hamburg: Hoffman & Campe, 1973)Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Dittberner, and Ebbighausen, , Parteiensystem, pp. 469–475 Google Scholar. Dittberner, however, still attributes a considerable share of the integrative capacity to the economic prowess of the system to generate and distribute prosperity, which implies that a more massive economic failure than has been experienced so far in West Germany could be fatal. On the other hand, the author leaves little doubt about his low estimation of the neo-Marxist analysis of the structural potential for crisis, pp. 481–488.

⁴⁷ Laufer, , Das foederative System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Munich: Bayerische Landeszentrale fuer politische Bildung, 1973)Google Scholar is noteworthy also for its exhaustive coverage of the financial aspects and cooperative practices of West German intergovernmental relations.

⁴⁸ Laufer, and Wirth, Jutta, Die Landesvertretungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Munich: Goldmann Verlag, 1974)Google Scholar. He also wrote books on the parliamentary state secretary and on the constitutional Court.

⁴⁹ Kaltefleiter, , Die Funktionen des Staatsoberhauptes in der parlamentarischen Demokratie (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A recent example of the author's election studies is his Im Wechselspiel der Koalitionen (with several co-authors, Cologne: Heymanns Verlag, 1970)Google Scholar, which combines an extensive investigation of the internal and coalition policies of the parties with the analysis of the 1969 elections.

⁵⁰ Loewenthal, and Schwarz, , Die Zweite Republic. 25 Jahre Bundesrepublik Deutschland, eine Bilanz (Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1974)Google Scholar. The contributors include well-known professor-politicians like Alfred Mueller-Armack, Hans Maier, and Carlo Schmid, and many prominent academics such as Theodor Eschenburg, Karl D. Bracher, Rainer Lepsius, Rudolf Wildenmann, and Ernst-Otto Czempiel.

⁵¹ Schwarz, , Vom Reich zur Bundesrepublik (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1966)Google Scholar.