Helga Baumgarten

Helga Baumgarten (born September 21, 1947 in Stuttgart ) is a German political scientist who focuses on Palestine , the Middle East conflict and political transformations in the Arab region. She taught from 1993 until her retirement in 2019 as a professor at Birzeit University north of Ramallah in the West Bank .

Life and academic background

Helga Baumgarten 2010

Helga Baumgarten was born in Stuttgart and went to primary school in Harthausen (district of Filderstadt ) from 1954 to 1958 and to grammar school in Nürtingen (today Max Planck grammar school ) from 1958 to 1966 . After graduating from high school in 1966, she studied history , English and Latin at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen . A Fulbright scholarship enabled her to study at Stony Brook University in New York from 1969 to 1971. There she earned an MA in history. In 1971 she returned to Tübingen and graduated there in 1972 with the state examination in English and history. Baumgarten studied history at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1972 to 1973 as a " postgraduate student " and also studied Arabic and Middle East Studies as a postgraduate course at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) . From 1973 to 1974 she completed postgraduate studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in political science, sociology, history and Arabic. In 1974 Baumgarten moved to the Georg-August University in Göttingen and studied the same subjects with a doctoral scholarship from the university. In March 1985 she received her PhD. phil at the Free University of Berlin with the dissertation "Origin and Development of the Palestinian National Movement 1948–1967 / 68. Investigations into the ideology and politics of the movement of the Arab nationalists and the national movement for the liberation of Palestine ( Fateh ) “Reviewers were Friedemann Büttner and Alexander Schölch .

Vocational training, teaching and research activities

From September 1973 to December 1974 Helga Baumgarten trained as a journalist at the German School of Journalism in Munich with internships at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne and the Frankfurter Rundschau . The training ended with the acquisition of the journalist diploma. 1970–71 she was teaching assistant at SUNY Stony Brook in the subject of modern history. From 1971 to 1972 she worked as an assistant in the American Studies department at the University of Tübingen. From 1976 to 1979 she was a lecturer in Cultural Studies and Political Science at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon . After her return from Lebanon, she worked from 1979 to 1980 as a research assistant in the political science department (Professor Bassam Tibi ) at the University of Göttingen. From there she moved to the Free University of Berlin , Politics of the Modern Middle East, as a research assistant. After completing her doctorate in 1985, she carried out a research project “Migration and Diaspora Nationalism” financed by the Volkswagenwerk Foundation from 1985 to 1988. From 1989 to 1990 she worked as a research assistant to Professor Udo Steinbach at the German Orient Institute in Hamburg. After moving to Jerusalem, she took up work as DAAD representative for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip . In 1996 the DAAD opened an information center in East Jerusalem, which Helga Baumgarten initially managed until 2001 and again from 2004 to 2013. Between 2001 and 2004 she conducted a research project of the German Research Foundation (DFG) on a project Transformation of Neopatrimonial Reindeer States in the Arab Region, carried out at the Department of Political Science at the University of Tübingen (in cooperation with Professor Peter Pawelka) with field research stays in Egypt , Jordan and Syria .

Full professor at the University of Birzeit

In February 1993, Helga Baumgarten began teaching as an associate professor in political science (DAAD visiting professor) at the University of Birzeit. In 2004 she was promoted to full professor. From 2004 to 2015 she headed the MA program “Democracy and Human Rights” (DMHR). Until her retirement in 2019, she taught in addition to DMHR in various programs: Seminar for Political Science, Ibrahim-Abu-Lughod Institute for International Studies and finally in the Interdisciplinary PhD Program for the Social Sciences. There she still supervises doctoral students and teaches seminars.

From March to June 2004 she was a fellow at the Austrian Institute for International Politics in Vienna. She has given regular lectures and participated in seminars and conferences in Germany and at German universities, in Austria and Switzerland, in France and England and above all in the USA, among others. a. Harvard and New School of Social Research, New York.

Helga Baumgarten lives in East Jerusalem . She is married to the Palestinian musician, composer and Ud soloist Mustafa al-Kurd . Both have a son, Sami Darwish al-Kurd , who is a sound engineer and works as a musician (electric guitar, composition, vocals), both as a soloist and with other groups and with his own band.

Publications

Books

• The fight for Palestine - what do Hamas and Fatah want? , Herder, 2013, ISBN 978-3-451-06543-9 .
• Hamas: Political Islam in Palestine. Diederichs, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-720-52820-0 .
• min al-tahrir ila'l daula. Al-harakah al-wataniyah al-filastiniyah 1948-1988. Ramallah, 2006: Muwatin. (Arabic translation of Palestine. Liberation into the state).
• The Myth of Camp David or The Distortion of the Palestinian Narrative . Birzeit 2004: Birzeit Strategic Papers.
• Arafat: Between struggle and diplomacy. Ullstein, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-548-36419-5 .
• Palestine: Liberation in the State. The Palestinian National Movement since 1948. Suhrkamp 1991, ISBN 3-518-11616-9 .

Article (selection)

• The project of a Palestinian state between democracy and authoritarian rule. In: Uta Klein , Dietrich Thränhardt (eds.): Endless spiral of violence? Conflict Structures and Opportunities for Peace in the Middle East. Wochenschau, Schwalbach 2002, pp. 103–122.
• Discontented People and Outside Agitators. The PLO in the Palestinian Uprising. In: Jamal Raji Nassar, Roger Heacock (eds.): Intifada. Palestine at the Crossroads. Praeger / Greenwood, New York 1990, ISBN 0-275-93411-X , pp. 207-226.
• Authoritarian systems under the conditions of globalization - the example of Palestine. In: Peter Pawelka, Lutz Richter-Bernburg (ed.): Religion, culture and politics in the Middle East : The Islamic world under the sign of globalization. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14098-1 , pp. 76-92.

• The “Oslo System” and the war against Gaza , in: INAMO 79 (autumn 2014): 34-38.
• Hamas after the Gaza War , in: World Trends 65 (March / April 2009): 51-57.
• Hamas: election victory in Palestine. Islamist transformation to democracy in a neopatrimonial rentier system , in: Orient (Hamburg) 47.1 (2006): 26-59.
• The Three Faces / Phases of Palestinian Nationalism, 1948-2005 , in: Journal of Palestine Studies XXXIV.4 (summer 2005/136): 25-48.
• Jordanie: Vers la construction de la premiere democratie arabe? , in: Confluences Mediterranees 49 (printemps 2004): 134-147.
• Neopatrimonial Leaders Facing Uncertain Transitions , in: Political Transitions in the Arab World, part three: Contemporary Paradigms and Cases (edited by Roger Heacock). Birzeit University: Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute, 45-86 (2002).
• The occupation's dilemma. Extreme asymmetry of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , in: Kommune. Forum for Politics, Economy, Culture 20.8 / 02 (August 2002): 6-13.
• Has the peace process in the Middle East failed? What has changed in Israel and Palestine since Oslo , in: Der Bürger im Staat 48.3 (1998): 169-173.
• The Palestinian elections 1996, in: Orient (Hamburg) 37.4 (December 1996): 599-618.
• Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait. A comparative analysis of the political influences of migrant communities on receiving countries , in: Writings of the Central Institute for Franconian Regional Studies and General Regional Research at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Effects of Migration on Receiving Societies), 34.1996: 253-268.
• The "Gaza-Jericho Agreement". An interim balance sheet of the peace process in the Middle East , in: From politics and contemporary history (supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament) B11 (March 1995): 3-31.
• The PLO and the Intifada: On the way to an independent Palestinian state , in: Yearbook for Comparative Social Research 1991: 41-66 (published as a volume in 1994).
• Gaza-Jericho first, in: Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik 11.1993: 1307-1312.
• The PLO, Its Struggle for Legitimacy, and the Question of a Palestinian State , in: The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 9.3 (1987): 99-114.
• The Palestinian National Movement in the Arab World. The example of Jordan and Lebanon , in: Orient (Hamburg) 21.4 (December 1980): 511-528.

Book chapters (selection)

• The prevented state in the Middle East: Palestine , in: Peter Pawelka (ed.). 2008. The state in the Middle East. Construction and legitimation of rule. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 205-221.
• Hamas - the response of an oppressed society to the occupation , in: Holger Albrecht (ed.). 2007. The Middle East. Politics, Economy and Society. Festschrift for Peter Pawelka. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2003-221.
• Hamas ante portas , in: Georg Meggle (ed.). 2007. Germany, Israel and Palestine. Hamburg: European Publishing House, 83-100.
• Coexistence perspectives in Israel / Palestine , in: Udo Steinbach (Ed.). 2006. Autochthonous Christians in the Middle East. Between persecution and emigration. Hamburg: German Orient Institute, 179-192.
• The politicization of Christian-Muslim relations in the Palestinian National Movement , in: John Bunzl (ed.). 2004. Islam, Judaism, and the Political Role of Religions in the Middle East (with a foreword by Edward Said). Miami: Univ. of Florida Press, 75-96.
• Authoritarian systems under the conditions of globalization: The example of Palestine - Oslo and afterwards (1994-2003) , in: Peter Pawelka and Lutz Richter-Bernburg (eds.). 2004. Religion, Culture and Politics in the Middle East: The Islamic World and Globalization. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 76-92.
• Christians and Muslims in Palestinian Society and Politics: The Dynamics of Intercommunal Relations , in: Amr Hamzawy and Ferhad Ibrahim (Eds.) 2003. Religion, State and Politics in the Middle East. Festschrift for Friedemann Büttner. Münster-London: LIT Verlag, 211-232.
• The project of a Palestinian state between democracy and authoritarian rule , in: Uta Klein and Dietrich Thränhardt (eds.). 2002. Schwalbach / Ts: Wochenschau Verlag, 103-122.
• No more occupation! Freedom for Palestine! The Oslo Negotiation Process, Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian Society in the Occupied Territories - Flexibility, Compromise, and “Red Lines,” in Fritz Edlinger (ed.). 2001. Liberation struggle in Palestine. From the Madrid Conference to the Al Aqsa Intifada. Vienna: Promedia Verlag, 55-75.
• The Palestinian Political System: Chances for more Participation, in: Muriel Asseburg and Volker Perthes (eds.). 1998. Surviving the Stalemate: Approaches to strengthening the Palestinian Entity. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 41-52.
• Palestine: Stage of an Endless Conflict , in: Udo Steinbach (Ed.). 1992. Arabia: More Than Oil and Conflict. Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 101-111.
• Land for peace? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the Gulf War , in: Georg Stein (Ed.). 1991. Reflections on the Gulf War (with a foreword by Robert Jungk). Heidelberg: Palmyra Verlag, 108-129.
• George Bush's New World Order and Saddam Husain , in: Norbert Mattes (ed.). 1991. “We are the gentlemen and you are our shoe shine”. The Middle East before and after the Gulf War. Frankfurt: Dagyeli Verlag, 21-48.
• Migrations et nationalisme dans la diaspora - Les implications politiques des migrations de travailleurs palestiniens de la Rive Ouest et de la Bande de Gaza vers le Koweit depuis 1948 , in: Gilbert Beauge et Friedemann Buettner (eds.) 1991. Les Migrations dans le Monde Arabe . Paris: Editions du CNRS, 93-110.
• "Discontented People" and "Outside Agitators": The PLO in the Palestinian Uprising , in: Jamal Nasser and Roger Heacock (eds.). 1990. New York: Praeger Publishers, 207-226.
• The Middle East conflict and the Gulf States (with Friedemann Büttner), in: Fred Scholz (Ed.) 1985. The Gulf States. Economic power in the trouble spot. Braunschweig: Georg Westermann Verlag, 65-80.

Miscellaneous

• Regular publications in Inamo , Berlin.
• Also: The Parliament , Palestine Journal, Praxis Geschichte, Israel and Palestine: Journal for Dialogue, The Overview, etc.

Web links

Commons : Helga Baumgarten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Helga Baumgarten in the catalog of the German National Library
• Helga Baumgarten, Birzeit University at home.birzeit.edu