"This text is a summary of my farewell lecture as a university professor, which I
gave on 5 July 2005 as the holder of the professorship for Political Sciences and
Contemporary History in Mannheim, and which I later elaborated.
The analysis of unique historic events, as well as permanent structures and
process patterns, requires the use of a range of different methods used in the
historical and social sciences, which take into account the uniqueness of events
and the regulatory character of structures. The history of society and historical
social science are two not entirely compatible research approaches, which
attempt to link the analysis of events and structures in their own different
ways. Their common feature can be described as being a socio-historical
research approach.
In the age of the sovereignty of the people, strong tendencies can be observed
towards a lasting world peace, as well as towards legal and illegal acts of mass
annihilation, particularly in the form of war and of mass murder. A useful
concept of peace cannot aim to achieve structural conflict resolution and conflict
termination, but merely a dynamic of regulated conflict, which involves cooperation
and which entails a low degree of violence.
In European policy, the geographical and socio-political dimensions of the
concept of Europe are conjoined in different ways. Historically, a shift in the
image of a north-south Europe towards a west-central-east Europe and then
towards an east-west Europe can be observed."
