Kraftwerk and the International ‘Re-birth of Germany’: Multiplicity, Difference and Particularity in Music and International Relations

Kraftwerk are recognised as one of the most internationally influential groups in the history of popular music. They are also frequently labelled as a ‘typically’ German band and both popular and scholarly treatments generally set their work in the specific national context of German identity after the Second World War. Yet the same literature also emphasises how thoroughly international Kraftwerk are. Using Multiplicity as a lens, Dr. Benjamin Tallis demystifies this apparent contradiction by developing the insight that all societies are in fact inter-societal. This transforms contradictory readings of Kraftwerk into a productively complementary interpretation but also encourages mutual learning between International Relations (IR) and Cultural Studies. While drawing on critical IR’s rejection of both methodological nationalism and methodological statism, Tallis eschews calls to abandon the (inter)national. Instead Tallis retains Cultural Studies’ meaningful everyday national-societal categories (e.g. German music) but ground them in a more explicitly relational, inter-subjective constitution of societal identity. Tallis thus show how IR can better understand one of its core concerns (difference) and how Cultural Studies can avoid latent methodological nationalism. Sketching Kraftwerk’s genesis, innovations, inspirations, influence and importance, Tallis propose a new middle way that illuminates the inter-national politics of supposedly national phenomenon such as the musical ‘re-birth of Germany’.