Professor Joyce Marie Mushaben BOOKtalk

She is the most powerful women in

the world, the Chancellor of

Germany, since 2005 and a

transformational leader who has had

a profound impact on the

reunification of her country as well

as being a dominant player in the

EU, but she is a rather enigmatic

figure in the UK, but help is at

hand in the form of my guess today,

the politics and gender studies

professor who book becoming Madame

Chancellor examines her life and

politics. One of the most

interesting factors about her is her

background, she grew up not in West

Germany, but in east Germany, the

Communist East Germany, with the

very oppressive state surveillance

mechanism and she was the daughter

of a Lutheran pastor, which would

normally mean she was very much

under the thumb of the security

services?

She certainly learnt at a

young age not to talk too much. That

those conversations they could have

at home, her father was in charge of

what was then perceived as a radical

theological group were people could

participate. That suggests her

father had some kind of closer ties

with the Government, I'm not going

to say he was a secret informer, but

we can assume from his position. She

has this kind of early childhood

experience of being somehow

protected and also being somewhat

privileged because she has western

relatives who can send them food and

clothing packages when things are a

bit short and she doesn't really

face the kind of persecution that

pastors's children otherwise have

experienced. It must have been her

father 's willingness to cooperate

the Church in socialism, they called

it, that greeted her. But she was

just a very hard worker. She had

very good grades, her parents

encouraged her. At a certain point,

you need that expertise,

particularly if you have decided to

go into physics.

There was a moment

I really blinked at when you were

going through her early life when

she opts for a Lutheran confirmation

rather than a state youth dedication

ceremony. I thought that brought

home how different society in East

Germany was then.

A lot of people

opted for the state service just

because you could experience

discrimination. I think this is

because she is the pastor's.. We

don't get a lot of Merkel the

religious person or Merkel the

poorest person when we look at her

political behaviour. I see a lot of

that in her approach to human rights

and freedom of movement. I think

that was just a very personal

religious experience for her and her

family. And she does keep up some

kind of connection to a church youth

group when she goes to the

university, but she is also actively

involved with the free German youth

because that will ensure that you're

not going to face discrimination in

the career choices are opportunities

later on.

So you have to sign up to

bits of the state to ensure it

doesn't take a dislike to you?

The

east Germans use the word, we have

arrangement, they went through

certain rituals, engaged in certain

kinds of behaviours knowing it's

what you had to do to get by. This

was used against them after

unification when the west said, you

were collaborating, you were

complicit with communists and all

the East Germans could do was say,

you did live there, you don't know

what we had to do in order to make

it through.

Angela Merkel gets out

from under this quite quickly, it is

quite how rapidly she rose in the

Christian Democrat party, the CDU,

and around the time of reunification

she was in there and rising very

rapidly through the ranks in an

organisation would you are expected

to make your grades and plod through

different levels of the hierarchy.

Her first step into politics was

working as deputy press secretary,

but even before that first three and

last election in East Germany, she

got involved because she knew how to

complete computers together. All

these West Germans were sending lots

of money, fax machines and

computers, and she came into an

office and said, is there anything

you would like me to do? And they

said, whatever is in that box. She

proved useful and started listening

to make up her mind what group she

wanted to affiliate with. The spring

into the Cabinet had to do with him

feeling like he had to have a couple

of talking Easterners in there,

particularly because the unification

negotiations had to be completely

dominated by the west and all the

terms were pretty much dictated by

the west.

One of the other things

about this is as worthy gender

politics of Angela Merkel Boss rise.

The parties wanted women to be

visible in the top table, but not

saying very much.

Seamer but not

heard. Three women were brought into

the first Cabinet after unification

by dividing up one ministry into

three separate parts, it is kind of

interesting that Angela Merkel, who

was the women's minister and

Minister of youth, was not bit in

charge of the great abortion debate

and the negotiations of that. They

didn't trust her with that because

abortion had been free and legal in

East Germany and they passed at an

to another women, a Catholic

Bavarian. It wasn't free legal in

West Germany? It was not legal, and

even after unification the Supreme

Court ruling that comes out declared

abortion illegal at an punishable,

which is a phrase only a German

could understand.

Quite a circle to

square. What is the expectation of

women in politics in that era?

We

are already talking about 1989, 19

90. The SDP and the Greens by that

point had adopted some quarter

system for themselves, the SDP it

was women had to have 40% of the

party offices and then they were

attempting to provide at least 40%

of the candidates on the list on

that proportional representation

thing. Whereas the Greens did 50-50.

One women, one man, one moment, one

man. The CDU at the time she entered

had an informal quota which was more

about wanting one person from each

state, we want one person from the

most conservative wing of the CDU

and one person from the more liberal

Catholic wing of the CDU. She came

in as a summation of a number of

quota interests they had. They

really did not expect her to stay

and they certainly did not expect to

be with the rest of the team at

their own political game.

Was there

a sense the men at the top table

looked at her and saw her as a

product of the quota system and she

wouldn't go anywhere?

I don't think

they even looked at the quota

system. They thought he had

appointed her four, he had his own

reasons, bringing in a feud talking

Easterners, and as soon as she

started to get a grasp on that first

ministry she was not a feminist, she

had no background in politics, and

then she started pushing for things

like rules against sexual harassment

for dividing up the new positions in

the civil service evenly between men

and women, particularly for the

unemployed East German women, and

they thought, well, we have to

promote her upstairs so they moved

her to the environmental Minister

and brought in someone even younger

than Merkel who was a bonus five

catholic, which was a very rare

thing in East Germany, who would

then continue along their preferred

lines of women's policies. She moved

to the nuclear and environmental

agency, and even there they took

away some of the major nuclear

reactor safety issues and pick those

over in the energy ministry run by a

West German Mandy contrast, even

though she was the physicist.

Despite all the arrivals around her

and all the whole balls that are put

on her, she very, very rapidly. How

did she become Chancellor when all

these Bibles are trying to impede

her and overtake her? -- these

rivals.

She learned by watching and

not speaking, particularly the

behaviour of all the men surrounding

her. When it came to the crunch, she

had already moved up into the

position of CDU general secretary

because coal without due to be

finance scandal, someone else was I

due to be finance scandal, and a lot

of other rivals were running into

scandals at the state level, where

they had their own power bases. At

that point, she went off to Bavaria

to negotiate to say, even though I

am the general secretary of the

party and I should by rights be the

Chancellor candidate, why don't you

run this time and then I'll just be,

the chair in the parliament and then

I'll be able to run the next time.

So she made it look like it was her

deal. She really pulled the

tablecloth off from underneath all

of the dishes, the China that was

still sitting there. She has become

a tactician, but she did that by

observing people, studying very

hard, even during the financial

crisis, she is said to have pulled

two or three or later is to figure

out what was going on.

What's

fascinating about her rise issue

comes from the outside of the

system, rises up it remarkably fast.

2005, though she is running for

Chancellor, becoming the Chancellor

of one of these grand coalitions,

like a labour Conservative

Government in this country, a quite

extraordinary combination, but she

had the political skills to do it.

She had the skills but there was

also a power vacuum because all of

the other potential rivals are

candidates had kind of eliminated

themselves from the picture in the

short run and they really thought,

this is my gut feeling, that they

were putting her in as a kind of

placeholder, as they did with

others. I don't think they had quite

the same attitude towards Margaret

Thatcher, but they really thought

they would just put her in until

they can figure out which real man

would take over and then she just

proved so popular and so successful

and was able to negotiate

effectively with the SDP because I

think she really likes being in the

middle.

She's not an ideologue. In

her time in power, she doesn't quite

remarkable things. Part of this you

suggest goes back to her background

and sciences and understanding of

statistics and numbers. She took a

look at Germany's demographic time

bomb and said we have to have more

immigration we can't pay the

pensions. She took a look at the

effects of the nuclear disaster in

Japan and basically shut down

Germany's nuclear-power industry.

These were very, very huge decisions

she was prepared to go for in the

way a lot of politicians have.

There

might be one politician who could

compete with her at least on one

issue, who also entered politics

from the side. That means that since

they haven't had that socialisation

in the party, it is learning by

doing, it is using your own personal

experiences to try and make rules

for yourself and as an outsider you

observe and you realise where there

are opportunities that other people

aren't going to see because they are

intent on climbing the normal party

ladder. I just think she happened to

be the right person at the right

time he was very smart and able to

study people in a kind of systematic

way, and then suddenly she was able

to start putting a lot of the skills

to work.

For us in Britain, Angela

Merkel has been a fixture on the

news bulletins occasionally, she's

been running Germany for a very long

time, she's gone through three

governments, she is trying to pull

together a fourth now. The question

we asked, she is the big player in

the EU, but what is her attitude

towards Britain leaving? It is

slightly after the period of your

book, but how do you think she views

that event and what did she see as

the opportunities?

I think she is

deeply saddened by this, especially

for someone who didn't grow up

internalising the EU, she had to

face east, it was the Soviet Union.

It took her 3-5 years to figure out,

the EU is not to some sort of trade

set, it is also a community of

values that you can upload policies

as well as download policies. She

really came to rely on this triad,

France, her relationship with France

is not as close as previous German

chancellors, but she really saw the

need for a Britain, France and

Germany to balance each other out.

France more in terms of social

policies, Britain in terms of market

deregulation and things along these

lines. I think she is very crushed

by this and realises that that

increases the burden on her to keep

the EU together, plus we are also

watching the spread of this kind of

petulance, at the Euro phobia and

Euroscepticism to the new central

east European members. She's going

to have to play it at both ends.

Does she want a constructive

relationship does she think

maintaining the EU project is

punishing Britain?

I don't think she

would say punishing, I think she

would say there are consequences for

your actions and you cannot pick the

reasons out of the cinnamon bun, to

use a German metaphor, when you are

a member, you have rights but you

also have responsibilities. The east

central east European countries are

also in a dubious position because

they were more than happy to accept

the subsidies to become members and

night when it's time for them to

give back by distributing the

refugees and things along those

lines, she is dealing with both of

these parties neck who want the

rights but not the responsibilities.

Is she a fading figure after three

governments trying to pull together

a fourth she out on the European

stage in particular?

I don't think

she's the vegan, I think that the

basic problem within her own party

as party as well as within these

other parties is that they don't

have a six as a generation, they

don't have a second row of them who

can rise to the top. And, this has

become very clear, just in this

debate over the last three or four

weeks. However, that would give her

a new role in sort of steering her

party and some of its personnel

policies in the direction that

provides some longer-term stability,

the EU cannot do without Angela

Merkel, she's the person who has the

most institutional memory, she has

proven very successful in mastering

the details of the euro crisis, of

the energy turnaround, that is also

taken on a new dynamic within the

EU. She is certainly leading the

charge in terms of value community

and the refugee question so I don't

see her as being weakened, I see a

lot of journalists trying to figure

out something new to say about her

because I think they're getting

tired of always talking about the

right-wing populist AFB, AFB, AFB so

I think that she has a lot of -- to

give. She made a conscious decision

to pursue a fourth term and she had

said very early in her career, she

wasn't going to just hang around

politics until they pushed her out

the door. She suggested we back in

1992, that woman have many different

sources of identity and when they

leave politics, they have a lot of

other things to do whereas a lot of

men feel like that any life is over

and that's why they hang on a lot

longer than they could possibly be

contributing to the political

debate.

There are a couple more

chapters for the next edition

already growing in your mind, thank

you very much for joining us. We'll

talk will be back again to -- soon,

join us then.