Internal Structures and Political Practice of the German Progress Party between Fundamental Opposition and Reform Policy (1861-1878/79)

德国进步党充其量只是历史研究中的一个小众话题。然而，它在塑造帝国德国的政治格局方面发挥了决定性作用：最初在普鲁士宪政冲突中作为奥托·冯·俾斯麦的坚定反对者，努力建立一个自由民族国家，并从1867年起成为一个重要的反对党。基于档案资料，该项目批判性地分析了德国进步党及其在自由时代（1861-1878/79）的政治实践，采用以行动者为中心的方法。它侧重于党的影响、行动范围、内部结构、舆论领导、政治内容、心态和组织的变化，以及在政治动荡、党内内部冲突和与政治对手发生冲突后的调整过程。该项目还考察了该党在普鲁士和德国政治体系中的地位及其议会实践。为此，该研究项目将英国“高级政治”方法的理论和方法论方面应用于历史政党研究。在对基于冲突的政治进行意识形态批判性理解的基础上，它还特别关注日常政治生活、个人关系、野心和敌意，以分析和解释政治行动。然而，该项目既不会忽视文化和社会历史以及思想史的视角，也不会将政治仅仅降低到精英的历史。它旨在重建党内的政治程序和决策过程，以揭示权力中心、政治战略和动机、行动选择和意图以及党内谈判、冲突和矛盾。该项目将探索一个扩大的积极参与者群体，从而超越了评估政治自由主义思想史的范围。 德国档案馆的原始材料将首次得到系统分析：党的内部和机构文件（从警方监视和线人报告到会议记录到通知等）和自我文件（特别是议会成员的信件和笔记）。议会辩论和报纸文章的文字记录补充了档案材料。由于德国进步党的多方面意义，该项目涉及政治史的几个研究领域（政党史、民主主义史、自由主义史和民族主义史）。它采用了一种方法论上的创新视角来探讨民族国家的内部和外部形成。

The German Progress Party is at best a niche topic of historical research. And yet, it played a decisive role in shaping the political landscape of Imperial Germany: initially as a staunch opponent of Otto von Bismarck in the Prussian constitutional conflict, by striving for a liberal nation state, and from 1867 as an important oppositional party. Based on archival sources the project critically analyses the German Progress Party and its political practice during the liberal era (1861-1878/79), using an actor-centred approach. It focuses on the party’s impact, scope of action, internal structures, opinion leadership, changes of political content, mentality and organisation as well as adjustment processes in the light of political upheaval, after internal conflicts within the party and with political opponents. The project also examines the party’s position within the Prussian and German political systems and its parliamentary practice.For this purpose, the research project applies theoretical and methodological aspects of the British ‘high politics’ approach to historical party research. In building upon an ideology-critical understanding of politics based on conflict, it also pays particular attention to everyday political life, personal relationships, ambitions and enmities to analyse and explain political action. However, the project will neither ignore the perspective of cultural and social history as well as of the history of ideas, nor lower politics merely to the history of elites. It aims to reconstruct political procedures and decision-making processes within the party to reveal centres of power, political strategies and motives, options and intentions to act as well as inner-party negotiations, conflicts and ambivalences. The project will explore an expanded group of active players and thus go beyond the scope of the history of ideas in evaluating political Liberalism. For the first time, source material from German archives will be systematically analysed: the party’s internal as well as institutional documents (ranging from police surveillance and informants’ reports to minutes to circulars etc) and ego documents (especially letters and notes of members of parliament). Transcripts of parliamentary debates and newspaper articles complement the archival material.Due to the manifold significance of the German Progress Party, the project touches upon several research areas of political history (the history of parties, of parliamentarianism, of liberalism and nationalism). It adopts a methodologically innovative perspective to explore the internal and external formation of the nation state.