Horkheimer suppressed the Institute’s most successful empirical study by denying Habermas its institutional label

Evidence

Students and Politics was not published in the series Frankfurt Contributions to Sociology', and not even by the same publisher, the Europäischer Verlagsanstalt. Habermas's introduction thus suffered the same fate as Benjamin's introductory section to The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. Significant publications were reserved for the responsible figures'. If the latter never got round to writing themso much the better. Then nothing could go wrong. Horkheimer wrote to Adorno at the end of August 1959, If a book of ours is published in which questions of this sort’the goals of political maturity for the electorate and social as opposed to authoritarian democracyare seriously considered, it very much carries an obligation. It is a serious matter of theory. I cannot see why the staff of the Institute should want to enter the arena with a political text simply because a research report is being published.' In 1961 Students and Politics came out with the publishers Luchterhand in the series Sociological Texts’, of which Heinz Maus was a co-founder. It contained no mention of the Institute of Social Research, except in the remarks on research methods in the appendix. The Institute of Social Research, whose identity Horkheimer saw as being threatened by Habermas, remained virtually anonymous in the book, and thus denied itself in the very publication that was to become the most successful empirical study the re-established Institute ever produced. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2358

Categorization

• SEED: A stark case study for an essay on institutional self-protection overriding scholarly output: how the desire to control institutional identity can deny an organization credit for its own greatest success. The irony of Horkheimer’s caution — the study that succeeded most had to hide its institutional origin — is a sharply quotable paradox.
• XREF: Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art’ introduction suffering a similar fate directly parallels this — Horkheimer repeatedly suppressed introductions by subordinate theorists, a pattern visible across the earlier Frankfurt School history chapters. — connects to: Horkheimer forced Habermas out of the Institute by imposing a three-year study — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2359; The Institute published its most successful study anonymously under Horkheimer’s pressure — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2358; Horkheimer blocked publication of the Institute’s student politics study — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2356 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Horkheimer blocked Habermas’s Habilitation to drive him out of the Institute #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2359
• Horkheimer’s postwar conservatism led him to suppress politically engaged student research #expands (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2356