Scientific Changes in Times of Political Upheaval: Examples from 20th-Century Germany and Austria in Transnational Context
Mitchell Ash
University of Vienna
Research and writing on the relationships of science and politics proceeds from the assumption that the identities of the two “sides” or actors involved are fixed, so that only the relationship changes over time. This talk challenges that assumption, suggesting (1) that in times of radical regime change both science and politics are moving targets – meaning that it is at first by no means clear from the outset what will count as politics, or what will count as science in the new regime, and (2) that answers to that open question are not predetermined or dictated by one side (politics), but rather negotiated interactively. Multiple examples of how such negotiations work in particular circumstances will be presented; these come mainly from the multiple breaks in German and Austrian history symbolized by the dates 1918, 1933/1938, and 1945, but reference will be made as well to regime changes that took place in East Central Europe during the same period and thereafter. As a theoretical framework for interpreting and comparing such examples, the paper proposes that during radical regime changes science and politics serve as resources for one another. Seen in this light, scientific changes are reorganizations of resource constellations; the term “resources” refers here not only to funding, but also to personnel, institutional support, research practices and claims about the ideological significance or political usefulness of particular sciences.