The first DFG Leibniz research group “Nach dem Boom” focuses on the genesis of present-day challenges in the three decades following the collapse of the stable post-war order which was characterized by incomparable economic growth. It looks at the emergence of a new production regime – namely global, digital financial market capitalism – that replaced Fordism. Furthermore, the group works from the premise that this process of displacement culminated in a cumulative structural break that was accompanied by a revolutionary transformation in the western European “Keynesian-consensus” model of society. The new model that emerged was shaped by a “neoliberal” understanding of society as well as “neoliberal” political-economic norms and cultural frameworks.

Established in 2009 as a joint research project of the Seminar for Contemporary History at the University of Tübingen and the Department of Modern History at the University of Trier, the Leibniz research group “Nach dem Boom” continues their research about the changes in society, economy, politics and culture of Western Europe during the last three decades of the 20th century.

The second DFG Leibniz research group “Comparative contemporary history” deals with the change of structural frameworks and the intellectual trends of historical science since the 1960s from a global historical perspective. The international research group focuses on the following topics: the expansion of educational systems and its effects upon the historical studies, worldwide processes of democratisation and its repercussions on the historical science, intellectual responds of historical science to globalization and postcolonialism.

 

Core Projects “Nach dem Boom”

The core projects and individual studies examine the changing social order as it developed from the 1970s onward. Fernando Esposito (Tübingen) analyzes the Punk movement as a symptom of changing categories of political order, modern temporal structures and consumption. Hannah Jonas (Tübingen) examines British and German club football as a reflection of the break that occurred in terms of the media, the market, and mass consumption. By looking at selected giants in the chemical industry, Christian Marx (Trier) analyzes the accelerated process of multi-nationalization that took place and the re-structuring of Western European industrial companies that went along with it. Marc Bonaldo Fuolega (Trier) looks at the development of mid-size economic regions in Europe, particularly the industrial region of Stuttgart. Working within a social history context, Raphael Dorn (Trier) examines movement up and down the social ladder resulting from spatial mobility in Germany between 1980 and 2010. Arndt Neumann’s project (Trier) studies the transformation in work and urban space in the port city of Hamburg.

Tobias Dietrich (Trier) asks for the consumptive conditions of jogging as a popular sport and associated changes of social and cultural ruling principles in Germany “after the boom”.
Maria Dörnemann analyses the connections between international population policy and theories of modernisation, focusing on Kenya as an example. Lutz Raphael compares ways in which industrial work

Associated projects

In addition to the core projects there are four associated projects that study the period “after the boom”. Wiebke Wiede (Trier) conducts a comparative analysis of unemployment in Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. Niklas Alt analyzes ways of local migration policy in the 1970s and 1980s. Timo Kupitz studies the changes of the relationship between the Labour Party and the working class throughout the 80s and 90s. Marc Meyer analyzes how the SPD changed their political mobilization activities in the cities of Kassel and Frankfurt am Main throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the light of increasing social inequality and changing forms of political participation

 

Completed Projects

Tobias Gerstung (Tübingen) looked at the transformation of the heavily industrialized Scottish port of Glasgow and the urban planning for its post-industrial future. Martin Kindtner (Tübingen) analyzed the critiques of knowledge put forth by the French post-structuralists Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari as the result of a metamorphosis of the Left and left-wing social criticism.

Sara Kröper (Trier) investigated the effects that the re-founding of the universities in York and Trier had on the development of the respective cities.

The project of Christine Bald (Trier) explored the motives and goals of the new women’s movement and its support by established institutions in the Catholic province.  Furthermore, the interdisciplinary project “‘Good work’ after the boom” investigated the impact of the changed world of work on ideas of ‘good work’; this study is based on extensive data and studies at the Sociological Research Institute Göttingen (SOFI).