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Subproject C01
Advanced security: Changes in Statehood since 1970 (‘After the Boom’)

1. Funding period (2014-2017)

This subproject examines the changes in "statehood" in the Federal Republic of Germany since the 1970s. By "statehood" we mean the historically changeable manifestations of the state as a structure of power that establishes collectively binding rules and decisions within a given territory on the basis of its monopoly on the use of force.

Since the 18th century, the modern state has steadily expanded its control activities, so that by the early 20th century at the latest, it had assumed ultimate responsibility for regulating social, natural and economic uncertainties. Knowledge about the population and perceived threats played a central role in this process. The sub-project assumes that the diverse processes of change that began after the end of the post-war boom around 1970 also had an impact on statehood - the forms of governance, institutional characteristics and constellations of actors.

As the state entered the "post-boom" phase, the previously dominant national administrative and interventionist state came under increasing criticism and found itself challenged by phenomena of new insecurity. These new phenomena partly strained its previous capacities for action and evoked specific adaptations.

This subproject examines the processes of securitization and de-securitization around three phenomena of "expanded security" that entered the collective  consciousness of West German society in the 1970s and 1980s: Information Technology, HIV/AIDS, and the environment. The subproject asks what security problems were discussed in the communicative processes surrounding these new objects of knowledge (representation of security) and what forms of control were institutionalized with regard to these security problems (production of security).  It also examines how it was possible to de-dramatize or overcome the potential for insecurity (de-securitization).

The three complementary studies focus on processes of knowledge generation and dissemination. We analyze security semantics (concepts, metaphors), the materiality and visuality of security (objects, media, images), security spaces (borders, circulation), and the security actors participating in the processes of securitization and de-securitization (their interests and practices).

The guiding question is how the institutionalization of the new security regimes of data protection, safer sex, and environmental protection changed statehood in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. In this way, we hope to contribute to an understanding of the historicity of contemporary statehood.

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