Jennifer Yoder

Education

B.A., University of Akron
M.A. and Ph.D., University of Maryland

Areas of Expertise

• German politics and society; German foreign policy

• Politics of the European Union

• Collective memories and identities of Europe

• Regional politics and borderlands in Europe

Personal Information

Professor Yoder holds a joint appointment with the Department of Government and the Global Studies Program and teaches courses on European politics and societies. Her special interests are German politics, remembrance and reckoning after communism, and borderlands in Europe. Her latest project examines the politicization of memory of World War II in Europe and Russia. It examines eleven cases of commemorations where nationalist and far-right actors have attempted to reinterpret the past through the rhetoric and rituals at wartime commemorations. Yoder is the author of two books: From East Germans to Germans? The New Post-Communist Elite (1999) and Crafting Democracy: Regional Politics in Post-Communist Europe (2013). Her articles have appeared in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, German Politics and Society, German Politics, German Studies Review, East European Politics and Societies, Europe-Asia Studies and Regional and Federal Studies.

Publications

BOOKS

World War II Memory and Contested Commemorations in Europe and Russia

Oxford University Press, 2024.

Instrumentalization of the wartime past for political gain is the subject of this study of eleven World War II commemorations. Using a comparative, conceptually original approach, the book identifies the actors who manipulate memory surrounding wartime anniversaries, such as the bombing of Dresden and ceremonies to honor fallen soldiers and fascist collaborators. The cases of memory contestation span three geographic regions, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia, recognizing that each developed distinctive interpretations of the war and different patterns of memory politics. This empirically rich study reveals the grievances that motivate memory challengers and their strategies for shaping the commemoration discourses and rituals. The memory challengers’ toolkit includes varieties of emotional manipulation, subtle distortion, revisionism and full-scale denial. The study finds that, while there are differences in context and strategy across cases and regions, there are also areas of convergence. Moreover, a memory challenge in one country can spill over into others with serious consequences for foreign relations. While World War II Memory and Contested Commemorations in Europe and Russia deals with debates and narratives about events in the last century, its focus is on power, persuasion, and identity in the present.

From East Germans to Germans? The New Postcommunist Elites. 
Duke University Press, 1999.
Much of the recent literature on postcommunist ‘transitions to democracy’ simply ignores the East German experience, apparently assuming that reunification provided East Germans with an easy and ready-made route to democratic capitalism and that little may be learned about transitions from the German experience. Yoder rejects this simplistic notion, filling a serious gap in the transition literature and doing so with intelligence, insight, and style. – Jane Dawson, University of Oregon

Crafting Democracy: Regional Politics in Post-Communist Europe
Rowman & Littlefield, 2013.
The importance of subnational regions to politics, governance, and economic development in Western Europe has long been recognized. However, far less is known about recent steps to introduce a regional level of politics in East Central Europe. Reforms there are part of the larger process of crafting democracy; that is, regional reforms are linked to the economic and political transition away from communism and toward “Europe,” specifically the European Union. Crafting Democracy offers an important comparative analysis of the process and outcomes of region-building in the four Visegrád countries. Yoder investigates why some but not other post-communist countries chose to introduce a regional level of elected government.

ARTICLES

“’Revenge of the East’? An Exploration of the AfD’s Appeal in Eastern Germany,” German Politics and Society, Vol.38, No. 2 (2020) 35-58.

Angela Merkel’s Discourse about the Past: Implications for the Construction of Collective Memory in Germany, Memory Studies, Vol. 12, No. 6 (2019) 660-676.

“Good Neighborliness in a Tense Neighborhood: German-Polish Relations, 1990 to the Ukraine Crisis,” German Politics, Vol. 42, Issue 1(2018) 555-572.

Dialogues, Trialogues, and Triangles: The Geometry of Germany’s Foreign Policy of Trust-Building, German Politics, Vol. 26, Issue 2 (2017) 195-218.

From Amity to Enmity: German-Russian Relations in the Post-Cold War Period, German Politics and Society Vol.33, No. 3 (Autumn 2015) 49-69.

An Intersectional Approach to Angela Merkel’s Foreign Policy, in German Politics. Vol. 20, Issue 3 (September 2011) 360-375.

The Integration and Influence of Eastern German Elites in Politics after 1989, in German Studies Review, Vol. 33, No.3 (October 2010) 549-564.

Die demokratische DDR in der internationalen Arena, (“The Democratic GDR in the International Arena”) in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 11/2010.

No Longer on the Periphery: German-Polish Cross-Border Relations in a New Institutional Context, in German Politics and Society, Issue 88, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Autumn 2008) 1-24.

Leading the Way to Regionalization in Post-Communist Europe: An Examination of the Process and Outcomes of Regional Reform in Poland, in East European Politics and Societies, Special Issue on Poland, vol. 21, no.3 (Summer 2007).

Decentralization and Regionalization after Communism: Lessons from Administrative and Territorial Reform in Poland and the Czech Republic, in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2 (March 2003) 263-286.

Bridging the European Union and Eastern Europe: Cross-Border Cooperation and the Euroregions, in Regional and Federal Studies, Vol. 13. No. 3 (Autumn 2003) 90-106.

West-East Integration: Lessons from East Germany’s Accelerated Transition, in East European Politics and Societies, Vol.15, No.1 (2001) 114-138.

Regional Differentiation in the New German Laender, in After the GDR: New Perspectives on Divided and Reunited Germany (Rodolpi, 2001).

The New Regionalism: Sub-nationalism in Post-Communist Europe, in East European Studies/Woodrow Wilson Center Occasional Paper 58, 2001.

Regional Differences and Political Leadership in the New German States, in German Politics and Society, Vol.18, No.1 (Spring 2000) 33-65.

Truth without Reconciliation in Post-Communist Germany: An Appraisal of the Enquete Commission on the SED Dictatorship in Germany, in German Politics, Vol.8, No.3 (December 1999) 59-80.

The Regionalization of Political Culture and Identity in Post-Communist Eastern Germany,”East European Quarterly, vol. 32 (1998) 197-219.

Culprits, Culpability, and Corrective Justice: Dealing with the Un-democratic Past in the Consolidation of Democracy in Post-Communist East Germany, in Problems of Post-Communism., vol.45, no.4 (July-August 1998) 14-21.

Truth without Reconciliation in Post-Communist Germany: An Appraisal of the Enquete Commission on the SED Dictatorship in Germany, in German Politics, vol.8, no.3 (December 1999) pp.59-80.