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ProtoSociology is an interdisciplinary journal which crosses the borders of philosophy, social sciences, and their corresponding disciplines. Each issue concentrates on a specific topic taken from the current discussion to which scientists from different fields contribute the results of their research. ProtoSociology is further a project that examines the nature of mind, language and social systems. In this context theoretical work has been done by investigating such theoretical concepts like interpretation and (social) action, globalization, the global world-system, social evolution, and the sociology of membership. Our purpose is to initiate and enforce basic research on relevant topics from different perspectives and traditions.
This essay examines the foreign policy discourse in contemporary Germany. In reviewing a growing body of publications by German academics and foreign policy analysts, it identifies five schools of thought based on different worldviews, assumptions about international politics, and policy recommendations. These schools of thought are then related to, first, actual preferences held by German policymakers and the public more generally and, second, to a small set of grand strategies that Germany could pursue in the future. It argues that the spectrum of likely choices is narrow, with the two most probable-the strategies of "Wider West" and "Carolingian Europe"---continuing the multilateral and integrationist orientation of the old Federal Republic. These findings are contrasted with diverging assessments in the non-German professional literature.Finally, the essay sketches avenues for future research by suggesting ways for broadening the study of country-specific grand strategies, developing and testing inclusive typologies of more abstract foreign policy strategies, and refining the analytical tools in examining foreign policy discourses in general.