Lecture Series »Blick über den Tellerrand« / Kaiserslautern / January 15, 2026, 17:00 – 18:30 Uhr
»Not Yet Arrived« in Democracy? East and West 35 Years After Reunification
Even 35 years after reunification, are parts of eastern Germany still »not fully integrated into democracy« – as is often claimed? Right-wing extremist election results and differences in political culture seem to confirm this finding. And yet this picture is problematic in many respects. A historical comparison shows that what we are quick to dismiss as a peculiarity of eastern Germany is in fact part of a longer development in western democracies.
Speaker: Dr. Thorsten Holzhauser, Managing Director of the Federal President Theodor Heuss House Foundation in Stuttgart
Thorsten Holzhauser (born in Kaiserslautern in 1985) is a contemporary historian and, since January 2025, managing director of the Federal President Theodor Heuss House Foundation in Stuttgart.
He previously taught at the universities of Mainz and Glasgow. His research and publications focus on the history of democracy and political parties. His publications include »Die Nachfolgepartei« (»The Successor Party«) (2019), a history of the PDS/Left Party in reunified Germany, and »Parteien in der Krise. Wandel der Parteiendemokratie in den 1980er- und 1990er-Jahren« (»Parties in crisis. The transformation of party democracy in the 1980s and 1990s«) (ed. 2021).