A Foreign Policy Analysis of the "German Question": Ostpolitik Revisited

Abstract

Taking a constructivist approach to foreign policy analysis and usingGerman policy vis-a`-vis Poland and Czechoslovakia ⁄ the Czech Republicas an example, we examine Ostpolitik since the 1960s as a case of anorm-driven foreign policy. We argue that the content of Ostpolitik,including changes over time, can be explained by reference to a prevailingnorm consensus in Germany about the country’s foreign policytoward Central and Eastern Europe, which began to develop in the1960s.