(Not) a failing innovation

Abstract

In her doctoral dissertation Anne Hampele Ulrich analyses the organisational life cycle of the East-German Independent Women’s Association (UFV). She observes and discusses the attempts of a newly emerged collective to maintain itself in a situation of rapid political and institutional change and of changes within the organisation itself. The author succeeds at recognising and describing some of the challenges and dilemmas arising from the association’s political and organisational predicaments, e. g. tensions between the UFV’s claim as an umbrella organization and the rapid differentiation of the Women’s Movement. Ulrich’s emphasis on the aspect of organisational development, however, may cause the reader to overlook some of the Association’s political successes, which Ulrich also documents in her book.