Legislative Behavior in the German Reichstag, 1898–1906

Smith, Woodruff D.; Turner, Sharon A.

doi:10.1017/s0008938900000777

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Biefang, 2012: 17–18). The study complements the early dimensional analysis by Smith and Turner (1981) of parliamentary voting in Wilhelmine Germany as well as more recent studies by Debus and Hansen (2010; Hansen and Debus, 2012) on parliamentary voting in the Weimar Republic.…”

Section: Political Conflict Dimensions In Bismarck’s Germanysupporting

confidence: 53%

“…The study period covers Bismarck's entire term as Chancellor, which is often seen as a distinct era in the history of Imperial Germany (e.g., Biefang 2012: 17-18). The study complements the early dimensional analysis by Smith and Turner (1981) of parliamentary voting in Wilhelmine Germany as well as more recent studies by Debus and Hansen (2010;Hansen and Debus 2012) on parliamentary voting in the Weimar Republic.…”

Section: Political Conflict Dimensions In Bismarck's Germanymentioning

confidence: 54%

“…The emergence of the Centre Party, together with a move of parts of the National Liberals towards more conservative positions on regime issues, created a two-dimensional space that characterized political conflict throughout the remainder of the study period. Interestingly, these two issue bundles, socio-economic policies and regime matters, continued to play a major role in structuring political conflict in Germany, not only during the Wilhelmine era of the Kaiserreich (Smith and Turner, 1981) but also in the Weimar Republic (Debus and Hansen, 2010; Hansen and Debus, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Political conflict in Bismarck’s Germany: An analysis of parliamentary voting, 1867–1890

Häge

2017

Party Politics

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Imperial Germany is a prominent historical case in the study of Western Europe's political development. This paper investigates the number and content of political conflict dimensions from the foundation of the modern German state in 1866 to the end of Bismarck's reign as Chancellor in 1890. Methodologically, it applies dimension-reducing statistical methods to a novel dataset of content-coded parliamentary roll call votes. The analysis suggests that the emergence of the Catholic Centre Party in 1871 permanently transformed the conflict space from a single liberal-conservative divide to a two-dimensional space that distinguished positions on socio-economic issues and regime matters, respectively. The fact that positions on redistributive and regime issues were not aligned implies that theories stressing economic inequality as a driver for regime change are of limited applicability. Instead, the case of Imperial Germany highlights the importance of cross-cutting non-economic societal cleavages and the role of societal and political organisations in drawing attention to and perpetuating these divisions. KeywordsDimensionality, political space, roll call votes, Reichstag, Imperial Germany 1 Email: frank.haege@ul.ie; web: www.frankhaege.eu. 1 Political conflict dimensions in Bismarck's GermanyGermany's political development before World War I forms the backdrop for a number of influential theories of democratization (Moore 1966), party development (Michels 1911), as well as party system creation and change (Lipset and Rokkan 1967). Representing the paradigmatic case of the 'late democratizer' in Western Europe, even contemporary scholars of democratization feel compelled to demonstrate that their theories can provide an explanation for the longevity of the Kaiser's regime (e.g., Acemoglu and Robinson 2006: 67, 200-201; Ansell and Samuels 2014: 28-29, 52-54). This study contributes to our knowledge about German political development by identifying the dimensionality and content of the political conflict space during the founding years of the modern German state. It does so by analysing a novel data set of roll call votes taken in the Reichstag of the North German Confederation (1867-1871) and during the first seven legislative terms of the Reichstag of the German Empire (1871-1890). The study period covers Bismarck's entire term as Chancellor, which is often seen as a distinct era in the history of Imperial Germany (e.g., Biefang 2012:17-18). The study complements the early dimensional analysis by Smith and Turner (1981) of parliamentary voting in Wilhelmine Germany as well as more recent studies by Debus and Hansen (2010;Hansen and Debus 2012) on parliamentary voting in the Weimar Republic.However, the study does not only increase our descriptive knowledge about the nature of political competition in an important historical case, it also contributes to the methodological debate about the interpretation of roll call analyses and the theoretical discussion about the causes of regime stability and change. Met...

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Section: Political Conflict Dimensions In Bismarck’s Germanysupporting

confidence: 53%

Section: Political Conflict Dimensions In Bismarck's Germanymentioning

confidence: 54%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Political conflict in Bismarck’s Germany: An analysis of parliamentary voting, 1867–1890

Häge

2017

Party Politics

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Rössel¹

2000

Soziale Mobilisierung Und Demokratie

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Quantitative German History in the United States and the United Kingdom

Johnson

1988

Cent Eur Hist

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What has happened to quantitative history? Is it dead? Any working historian alive today in the English-speaking world surely knows that it has come under heavy attack at least since Lawrence Stone, one of its former proponents, began sounding its death knell in a provocative and widely cited essay written at the turn of this decade by declaring scientific history a “myth” and calling for a “revival of narrative.” Georg Iggers, perhaps the leading historiographer of European and especially German history, wrote recently that “the past few years have seen a profound disillusionment with the quantitative approaches which were at the core of would-be scientific history…. The heady optimism of Marxists, Annalists, and American cliometricians that history would become a rigorous science has been shattered. What has taken its place in recent historical writing is a return from analysis to narrative, with a central focus, as Stone says, on ‘man not circumstances. Indeed many pioneering American cliometricians have turned conciliatory like Robert Fogel, irritable and combative like Charles Tilly, or downright depressed like J. Morgan Kousser.

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Legislative Behavior in the German Reichstag, 1898–1906

Cited by 5 publications

References 9 publications

Political conflict in Bismarck’s Germany: An analysis of parliamentary voting, 1867–1890

Political conflict in Bismarck’s Germany: An analysis of parliamentary voting, 1867–1890

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Quantitative German History in the United States and the United Kingdom

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