Prof. Dr. Herbert ObingerAccording to the call for applications of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG German Research Foundation) Reinhart Koselleck Grants are supposed to enable innovative and high-risk research projects. Herbert Obinger, Professor of Comparative Politics and Comparative Social Policy Research, has now received one of these prestigious grants for his innovative research. The political scientist of the University of Bremen will compare European states on the question of whether and to what extent military and compulsory military service contributed to the development of welfare states. With this grant, the University of Bremen, once again, received a prestigious award of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
The US debate on the development of welfare states already recognizes the contribution of the support for veterans as one crucial element of the development of the particular social security system of the USA. In Europe, however, industrialization, proletarianization and the rise of both trade unions and social democratic parties still dominate the debate on the development of welfare states. And this, although Europe itself was once the major location of two World Wars. The preparations for war, total mobilization, the dreadful course of the wars and their catastrophic consequences all offer multiple options for research on the question whether and to what extent military and compulsory military service interfered with the social and education policies of the European countries: demands for healthier and better educated conscripts, the attempts to prevent another "turnip winter" or the (more often than missing) support for war invalids, surviving dependents, displaced persons, slave laborers, prisoners, bombed-out inhabitants - to name just a few of all the people who were left damaged by the war as regards their lives, health or opportunities.
This Koselleck Grant focuses on two aims: On the one hand to systematize beyond the multitude of diverse individual stories the comparative influences of military and conscription on the development of European welfare states. And on the other hand to analyze to what extent military and conscription are responsible for the differences in the national education and social policies.
More information:
Reinhart Koselleck-Projects - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG German Research Foundation)
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Herbert Obinger
SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 5
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-58567
E-Mail: herbert.obinger@uni-bremen.de
