Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

See the Conversations with History Blog See a webcast of this interview: Dahrendorf

Welcome to a Conversation on International Affairs. I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies. Our distinguished guest today is Sir Ralf Dahrendorf, an eminent sociologist, a distinguished academic administrator, and an important European political figure. As a sociologist, Sir Ralf is the author of twenty-seven books, including Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society; Society and Democracy in Germany; and, most recently, The Modern Social Conflict: An Essay on the Politics of Liberty. As an academic administrator, he served from 1974 to 1984 as Director of the London School of Economics. As a prominent European political figure, he was a member of the German Parliament, Deputy Foreign Minister, and EEC Commissioner. On the Berkeley campus this semester, he is the 1989 Sanford S. Elberg Lecturer in International Studies.

1. Background ... father's political career ... Nazi imprisonment ... education
2. Ideas ... regulating conflict in a democracy ... the German case ... social democracy and classical liberalism
3. The Liberal Agenda ... correcting the imbalance of the '80s ... nuclear weapons, the environment, and bioengineering ... multilateralism
4. Theory and Action ... Max Weber: no facile merger ... different time scales and realities ... administrative "straddling" of two worlds ... challenges to universities today ... moral minorities ... international studies ... the need for theorists
5. Europe's Future ... accelerated European integration ... relations between Germany and France ... the U.S. role ... NATO
6. Lessons Learned ... complexity

See the Sir Ralf Dahrendorf page and his lecture text: How is Europe Changing?
See more on the Sanford S. Elberg Lectures in International Studies

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