Die Konjunktur- und Strukturkrisen der "langen" siebziger Jahre. Verlauf, Wahrnehmung und Bewältigung im Saarland 1966-1982

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Margrit Grabas
• Subject Area: Economic and Social History
• Term: from 2010 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 185637663

From the perspective of the economic and social history the project deals with the recessions of 1966/7, 1974/5 and 1981/2. It concentrates on the interrelations between the patterns of the crises and its reflections in the consciousness of the involved managers/investors, employees/consumers and politicians. In the geographical research area of the Saarland in the ¿long¿ 1970s there was a combination of these cyclical crises with different structural crises of the coal and steel industry. Due to its character of a Middle European border region the focus on this area allows to research these crises from a transnational perspective within the context of a German-French-Luxembourgian industrial district. The main focus on the patterns, the perception and the strategies of overcoming the crises which dominated the work up to now will be pursued further in the period of continuation. In the next steps a special emphasis will be on the connections between the existing consciousness of crises and the initiation, enforcement and subsidizing of measures for overcoming the crises. In this context, there will be a deepening of the research on the role of trade unions and the crises policies of the European Commission. The appearance of the crises in big enterprises will be researched with the help of a case study on the transnational corporate strategies of the steel producers Saarstahl (and its predecessor companies) and ARBED which were strongly affected by the crises. Further, to complete the research there will be an analysis of the political strategies to overcome the crises. For example, they included subsidies for the coal and steel industry or the support of agreements which sought to protect the employees (Sozialpläne) and also measures to support the structural change in the region. Terminologically, the project considers crises a historical reality of uncertainty and losses that was directly perceived and experienced by the contemporary political, economic and public actors. Therefore, it is assumed that crises have a deep impact on the regulation of individual and collective behavior which is concentrated on a short time.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants