ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: FROM RED TO GREEN IN ... - Isioma

This has several interesting implications. It follows that when the AL
debated the use of violence as a tool of protest, it in fact also debated the nature
of the West German state. In distancing itself from violence, however gradually,
the AL reconciled itself to the Federal Republic and to the West. Thus, this
dissertation interprets the controversies over violence that erupted during the
1980s as the final stages of the New Left’s coming to terms with the Federal
Republic and the final chapter in the history of the troubled relationship between
the Left and the West German state. In the course of the 1980s, in West Berlin,
the rift between the Left and the West German state was gradually closed.
The three historiographical issues outlined at length above serve as
thematic threads running throughout the dissertation rather than providing an
organizational structure. The dissertation itself is organized chronologically,
with Chapters Four through Seven covering periods corresponding to the
legislative periods in West Berlin. It may be objected that adopting the
legislative periods as caesuras automatically imposes an undue emphasis on the
role of parliament in shaping the development of the AL. In fact, this was one of
the interesting aspects of my research findings with broader implications
involving radical movements in parliamentary democracies: I found that the
electoral cycles imposed themselves upon the AL, influencing what was under
debate, the nature of the debate, the timing of the issues the AL raised, and the
general strategy of the party. In other words, parliament insinuated itself into
the organization and began to control it, not the other way around.
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