[Knowledge and Environment in the "Participatory Dictatorship" : Scientific Environmental Concepts and the...

The GDR was an ecological failed state in 1989/90. But while public input and critical environmental groups protested more openly against environmental problems during the 1980s, the established sciences remained strangely mute and appeared unable to develop appropriate approaches to solving the environmental crisis. Almost 20 years earlier, however, an environmental policy departure that was largely supported by scientific reform initiatives had begun in the GDR. The inclusion of the concept of conserving nature and the environment in the 1968 constitution and the adoption of the land improvement law two years later were the expression of a socio-political consensus on the environmental issue.How can this sharp discrepancy be explained? The article investigates the influence of scientific environmental concepts on the departure in environmental policy in the GDR. The example of scientific nature conservation, which had been institutionally anchored in the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences since 1951, shows that conservationists underwent a period of "normalization" in the 1950s, which was an essential prerequisite for giving their concerns political legitimacy. This forced adaptation process not only influenced the concepts and goals of East German nature conservation, rather also opened up participatory opportunities for its protagonists.The essay argues for a reassessment of East German environmental history, which so far has only been considered from the perspective of how it ended. Furthermore, it is argued that the conceptual concept of the "participatory dictatorship" (Fulbrook) should be applied to the history of science in the GDR in order to expand existing approaches.