Citizens in Foreign Policy

In the drafting process of Germany’s first National Security Strategy, the leading Auswärtiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office) conducted a participation series that was unprecedented in terms of both quantity and quality. In the summer of 2022, the Auswärtiges Amt offered various dialogue and participation formats across the country, in which randomly selected citizens could contribute their opinions and develop recommendations. However, this innovative opening of the strategy process was limited by certain control techniques used by the Auswärtiges Amt for better manageability and risk avoidance. In this new paper, Christian Opitz, Hanna Pfeifer, and Anna Geis argue that the participation around the National Security Strategy can be understood as a controlled politicisation. The executive specifically politicises some aspects, while at the same time other aspects are intentionally depoliticised. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how controllable a top-down politicisation can be in view of unintended effects.

The article was published in German with Politische Vierteljahresschrift. It is open access and can be found, downloaded, and read here.