US German Policy and Structural Determinants: Postwar Power Asymmetry and the Construction of Hegemonic Order

ÖZEN Ç., Kolasi K.

ANKARA AVRUPA CALISMALARI DERGISI-ANKARA REVIEW OF EUROPEAN STUDIES, cilt.15, sa.2, ss.125-160, 2016 (ESCI) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 15 Sayı: 2
  • Basım Tarihi: 2016
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1501/avraras_0000000237
  • Dergi Adı: ANKARA AVRUPA CALISMALARI DERGISI-ANKARA REVIEW OF EUROPEAN STUDIES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.125-160
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: US German Policy, German Problem, Open Door, Postwar Power Asymmetry, Hegemonic Order, ORIGINS, FUTURE
  • Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

US policy regarding the German question, witnessed a radical change from the Morganthau Plan that envisaged the destruction of German heavy industry into the Schuman Plan that made the latter the core of European reconstruction. If we focus on the sudden death of the president Roosevelt, it appears that the change in US leadership has defined the change in US policy. Yet this radical change in policy indicates a political shift characterized by a depth that cannot be explained only by a change in leadership. This article, based on the assumption that international affairs must be explained without reducing them to the behaviors of governments, aims to reveal the structural causes behind the US policy change towards the German problem. The emerging mutual positioning of US and Soviet power as a result of bipolarity and more importantly the construction of a liberal hegemonic order in Western Europe under the influence of this positioning are argued to have defined the structural conditions.