From a structural-functional perspective, the compromise nature of personnel reorganization stemmed from two circumstances resulting from political, not least voter, decisions: the political system change in Eastern Germany had to be carried out at a speed that can usually only be achieved through a violent revolution. At the same time, however, it could not fall back on an arsenal of violent revolutionary instruments. In short: an evolutionary change had to be implemented at revolutionary speed.
This led to the compromises between incompatibles, which were also characteristic of the ambivalence of the changes: the nature of system change as a fundamental process could lead, on the one hand, to revolutionary demands such as the radical replacement of the elite. This was countered, on the other hand, by the precept of legal action, that is, the demand that all elements of the process be conducted according to law. Both positions, in turn, sought normative protection in the doctrine of democracy.
The personnel commissions were developed and installed as the primary instrument – in terms of range, depth, duration, and impact – for personnel renewal in the East German higher education system. [ . . . ] The positivist core of the processes carried out by the personnel commissions consisted of assessments of individual life histories for the purpose of determining a person’s eligibility (or non-eligibility) for civil service in the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. This matter was functionally translated into the criterion of feasibility. The responsible ministers of education and research used the insights acquired by the commissions to determine the feasibility or unfeasibility of each individual.
When focusing on actors in the reorganization of the higher education system, it should be noted up front that no one fundamentally disputed the need to restructure the system. “At least no one spoke out publicly for maintaining the status quo of the years 1989-90. In that regard, the nascent camps had a common point of departure.” (Neidhardt 1994, p. 34)
This procedure was to be considered restorative, also contrary to the external perception of some efforts within the university. Although the reorganization process was not disputed, in principle, within the universities, opinions on how thorough the process needed to be varied, of course: to be precise, they depended on each individual’s degree of social involvement. The zeal for reform exhibited by the “old cadre with experience in management and politics,” for example, had to be “dampened by the fact that more than a few of them would have had to dismiss themselves if they [really] took the notion of self-renewal seriously.” (Ibid, p. 38)
Furthermore, none of the participating actors denied that this reorganization had to be a democratic reform process. Once again, in all analytical coldness: even those in the GDR who, in the interest of maintaining state-socialist control, proceeded to tout democratic decision-making and power controls as dispensable, even they were by no means being hypocritical when they emphasized the appropriateness of democratic processes. After all, it was difficult to deny that the basic conditions had changed.
But even more, no word was emphasized more within the debate on the East German university restructuring process than “democracy.” By the same token, the accusation that certain plans and intentions and things that were done (or not done) were undemocratic in nature was part of the standard polemical repertoire employed by all sides in the ensuing discourse.
In order to answer the question of whether the democratic demands that were formulated were in fact implemented in the real process of making and carrying out decisions, one thing needs to be considered: what was actually thought of as “democratic” in the democratic reform?
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