Conference at the Ruhr University Bochum, June 1-3, 2016:
A Player and not just a Payer?
The Work of German Political Foundations abroad
with a special focus on Israel and the Palestinian Territories
What role do the German political foundations play in the international arena? What impact do they have on the German foreign policy? Are they think tanks, independent political actors or an instrument of the foreign office? How do they influence the political landscape in the countries, they are working in? How did and do they influence the development of bilateral relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and other countries?
These questions should be
discussed during the conference.
A special focus should be on the case study of
German political foundations in Israel and Palestine as a
sample for the worldwide work of the foundations and with
regard to the unique character of the German-Israeli
relations and its development during the last 60 years.
Today, all six German foundations have been active in the
region for many years. The development of the bilateral
relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and
Israel and the German approach towards the Palestinian
questions as well as the large amount of projects in a
geographically small area offers a great opportunity to
analyze the work of the foundations and their influence.
Furthermore, the case of Israel and the Palestinian
Territories are a blue print of the problems of
strengthening democracy in the specific political and
social framework of the Middle East. Politics in Israel
and Palestine have nationwide relevance and are also one
of the main topics in German foreign policy. That is why
these cases are (1) ideal to show the foundations capacity
to act as a pioneer in complicated or non-existing
bilateral relations between two states and (2) ideal for
monitoring the influence of German political foundations
on German foreign policy and on the political landscape
itself.
The conference program will
be published during the next days. The conference is open
to the public, a pre-registration via email is required
due to the limited amount of seats at the conference hall.
To register for the conference, please send a short e-mail
to a_abelmann[a]yahoo.com.