東独出国運動とハーシュマン理論

抄録

This paper criticizes Hirschman's interpretation of “the events of the autumn of 1989” that is representative of the popular interpretation. According to the popular interpretation, the process started just by change of the Hungarian west border in May, 1989. Hirschman (1995) has written the same. Using only this framework he studied why and how the Exodus and the reform movement tied up in East Germany in the autumn of 1989. He did not recognize very important historical facts and showed some unsuitable judgments.
The central point of the events of the autumn of 1989 in East Germany is the opening of the Berlin Wall, i.e., liberalization of emigration and foreign travel. It was the result of the “Ausreise” (this word means departure, but as an official East German word it refers to emigration) movement that had existed since 1975 and was growing quickly. The most important demands for reform by people who decided to stay in the country in the autumn of 1989 were also liberalization of foreign travel and election. Therefore, the departure movement and the reform movement had different interests as well as a common interest. The history and roles of the departure movement since 1975, which is the most important historical fact, is missing in Hirschman (1995) and in the popular interpretation.
The departure movement was not simply an escape movement, but a very strong and aggressive dissident one, because it demanded from the government acceptance of the human right to leave the country, which could not exist without ban on free departure and free foreign travel (isolation of the East German people) . The victory of the movement (the wall opening) brought about a chain collapse of East European communist systems. That suggests the movement was one of the three major movements from the bottom which brought about the system collapse. The others were Polish solidarity and the independence movement in the Baltic States.
Hirschman also made other misjudgments. He argued that there were no “voices” in East Germany and that the tie-up of the departure movement and reform groups, such as “new forum” (derived from groups for peace, human rights and environment) arose for the first time in the autumn of 1989, and that Christa Wolff and other in traparty artistic people were the main forces for “voice.” In addition, because he considered the events of the autumn of 1989 separately from the historical context, the events were drawn only as accidental outbreaks.
If the events of the autumn of 1989 had been considered in Hirschman's framework, the concept of “voice in pursuit of exit” could have been utilized. Footnote 5 of Hirschman (1995) mentioned the “voice in pursuit of exit” which Scott (1986) discovered as one of the forms of the emancipation of Cuban slaves. Hirschman called it “a mixed, exit-cum-voice strategy.” He should have developed this concept for study in the East German case if he wanted to persist in his model of voice-exit.