Pathways to Path-Dependence, 1918–90

2018 ◽  
pp. 162-207
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
French Case ◽  
System Threat

During 1918–90 ideological, anti-system communist and fascist parties emerged. Anti-system obstruction and the response to it from establishment parties explain why a centralization of agenda control succeeded in the French National Assembly in 1958 but not during previous reform attempts or in the German Reichstag during the Weimar Republic. The absence of obstruction (in the French case) or legislators’ procedural response to it (in the German case) prevented any substantial reform in the interwar years. Only when anti-system obstruction triggered a procedural response did the centralization of agenda control succeed in France. Once procedural path changes occurred, legislators adapted by developing a preference for talk (in the plenary) or work (in committees). This explains why neither the disappearance of the anti-system threat in the British House of Commons nor the emergence of a Communist party in the Swedish Riksdag affected the respective procedural paths chosen prior to 1917.

Adaptations, 1991–2015

2018 ◽  
pp. 208-232
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Path Dependence ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Similar Increase ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Sharp Rise ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
Procedural Reform

The 1991–2015 period saw both the diminished importance of the traditional anti-system parties of the left (due to the end of Communist rule in Europe) as well as the rise of new populist radical right-wing parties. As a response to the sharp rise of tactical obstruction by loyal opposition parties, the French National Assembly became a hybrid legislature when committees were empowered under centralized agenda control in 2008. With no similar increase of obstruction in the British House of Commons, no substantial procedural reform occurred. In the two working legislatures (the Riksdag and the Bundestag), legislators maintained their preference for work. This explains the procedural path dependence in both legislatures despite the appearance of a potential anti-system party (the Sweden Democrats) in the Riksdag. Given the absence of sustained obstruction by the Sweden Democrats, followers successfully reversed an attempt to informally centralize agenda control in the Riksdag.

scholarly journals Unity in Diversity? The Development of Political Parties in the Parliament of Canada, 1867–2011

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Godbout ◽  
Bjørn Høyland
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
The United States ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Party Discipline ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
Party Voting

What explains the development of legislative party voting unity? Evidence from the United States and Britain indicate that partisan sorting, cohort replacement effects, electoral incentives, and agenda control contributed to enhancing party cohesion during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here, these mechanisms are evaluated by analysing a dataset containing all the recorded votes from the Canadian House of Commons, 1867–2011. Overall, we find that partisan sorting and the government’s ability to control the agenda are central to the consolidation of parties over time. Our results underscore the need to integrate institutional rules and legislative agendas into models of parliamentary voting behaviour and suggest that strict party discipline can lead to the development of a multi-party system in the legislative arena.

The Politics of Working—Class Women in the Weimar Republic

1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Light Industry ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Large Expansion ◽  
Working Class Women

Working—Class women in the Weimar Republic faced a complex and disorienting political situation. The revolutionary government granted women the right to vote in November 1918, but then ousted many women from their wartime jobs with the assistance of the trade unions and factory councils. The growing radicalism of working women during the latter phases of the First World War, marked especially by heavy female participation in the general strike of January 1918 in the munitions industry, was checked by the expulsion of women from exactly those sectors of employment which were most conducive to radicalism, the large plants in the metal industry. In other sectors, however, there was a large expansion of union membership among women during there volutionary period from November 1918 until May 1919, and many women in light industry and rural areas simultaneously joined unions and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Urban women working in large plants who might have supported the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) or the Communist Party (KPD) were fired to make room for returning war veterans, and this led to an eclipse of female radicalism from 1919 until 1923. The inflation of 1923 again activated many women who were attracted to the Communist Party by its neighborhood price control committees, and women took an active part in pressuring food shops to keep prices down and joined in plundering shops or stealing from the fields of landlords and peasants when hunger left them no alternative. The economic chaos of 1923 pushed even women in light industry to the left, and textile workers in Berlin, Saxony, and Thuringia gave the Communists a majority in union elections.

Parliaments in Time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Legislative Procedures ◽  
Legislative Agenda ◽  
Western European ◽  
System Threat ◽  
Distributive Bargaining

This book sheds light on the institutional development of four (emerging) Western European parliaments. Parliaments in Western Europe are noteworthy for several reasons. Their institutional designs differ remarkably, with distinct consequences for their policy output. Scholars have diagnosed the decline of legislatures for over a century now. Based on a model of distributive bargaining over legislative procedures, this book engages in a comparative process-tracing analysis of ninety reforms, which restructured control over the plenary agenda and committee power in Britain, France, Sweden, and Germany between 1866 and 2015. The analysis presented suggests that legislators in Western Europe rationalize procedures as a response to growing levels of legislative workload. As a consequence, legislatures evolve towards one of two procedural ideal types: talking or working legislatures. In talking legislatures, governments enjoy privileges in legislative agenda-setting (resulting in centralized agenda control) and committees are weak. In contrast, working legislatures combine decentralized agenda control with powerful committees. Which path legislators chose is determined by the appearance of anti-system obstruction. If anti-system parties obstruct legislative business, legislators surrender ancient procedural privileges and agree to a centralization of agenda control. Otherwise, their demand for legislative mega-seats on committees triggers the evolution of working legislatures. If legislators fail to respond to an anti-system threat, legislative procedures break down. For this reason, the central aim of procedural reforms in Western European parliaments is to maintain legislative democracy. Rather than a decline of legislatures, for talking legislatures to successfully overcome an anti-system threat indicates the resilience of legislative democracy.

The Search For Symbols

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin R. Hochman
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
National Anthem ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
New Form ◽  
Political Right

This chapter addresses the clash over state symbols that emerged alongside the intensive debates about the new form of government. It highlights the importance of großdeutsch nationalism in republican attempts to defend democracy and its symbolic manifestations. In the Weimar Republic, the decision by the National Assembly to replace the black-white-red imperial standard with a black-red-gold tricolor was hotly contested by those on the political right. For Austrians, the debate over state symbols focused on the national anthem. This chapter, however, moves beyond simply viewing these debates as symptoms of political fragmentation in the two countries. Through an investigation of letters and petitions sent by individuals and associations to the governments, it explores how contemporaries began self-consciously to practice what they saw as the rights and responsibilities of citizens living in democratic republics.

‘March Separately, But Strike Together!’ The Communist Party’s United-Front Policy in the Weimar Republic

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Marcel Bois
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
New Members ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
United Front ◽  
Two Phases

Abstract The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) first coined the united-front policy in 1921, representing a promising effort to bolster Communist influence in the workers’ movement of that country. As the first part of the article shows, the KPD recruited large numbers of new members and significantly improved its electoral returns as a result. Despite this success, however, the party only pursued the united-front policy in two phases (1921–3 and 1926). As illustrated in the second part of the article, the KPD bid farewell to the united front as ‘Stalinisation’ began to set in during the Weimar Republic’s final years – with lethal consequences, as its abandonment decisively abetted the victory of German fascism.

Women's Rights, Nationalist Anxiety, and the “Moral” Agenda in the Early Weimar Republic: Revisiting the “Black Horror” Campaign against France's African Occupation Troops

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Roos
Keyword(s):  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Northern Africa ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Women And Children

In the months and years following ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the Allied occupation of the Rhineland became a focal point of German nationalist propaganda. The campaign against the so-called “black shame on the Rhine” (schwarze Schmach am Rhein), a racist slogan referring to the stationing of soldiers from northern Africa, Senegal, and Madagascar in the French zone of occupation, was one of the ugliest outgrowths of German opposition to the peace treaty. Support for the movement against France's African troops was disquietingly broad. An interpellation to the Reich government of May 1920 launched by the Majority Social Democrats (SPD) and endorsed by all parties in the national assembly except the Independent Socialists (USPD) is illustrative of the racist fears motivating “black horror” protests: “Even after the armistice, the French and Belgians continue to use colored troops in the occupied territories. … For German women and children, men and boys, these savages pose a horrifying danger. Their honor, health and life, purity and innocence are being destroyed. … This situation is disgraceful, humiliating, and insufferable!”

5. The House of Commons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Loveland
Keyword(s):  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Parliamentary Sovereignty ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Modern Era

This chapter examines the relationship between the government and the legislature, in order to develop arguments concerning the doctrines of parliamentary sovereignty and the separation of powers within the contemporary constitution. It argues that, for most of the modern era, the House of Commons has been a body in which party politics is the dominant determinant both in the legislative process and in respect of executive accountability. The house is manifestly now a factional rather than national assembly for most purposes. But it would be premature to conclude that the constitution permits factional concerns to determine both the content of legislation and the parliamentary accountability of government behaviour.

Die radikale Linke als Massenbewegung. Kommunisten in Harburg-Wilhelmsburg 1918–1933

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-200
Author(s):  
Marcel Bois
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Great Strength ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Regional History ◽  
The City

AbstractIn the mid-1990s, Klaus-Michael Mallmann published his study on 'Communists in the Weimar Republic'. His newly established social-historical approach on the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) has since been taken up by other historians. One of them is Christian Gotthardt, who recently published a book with the promising title 'The Radical Left as a Mass Movement'. Here he focuses on the regional history of the KPD in the city of Harburg-Wilhelmsburg. The great strength of his book is the detailed description of the local Communists' day-to-day work. However, when turning his attention to the turning points of KPD history, the problems associated with adopting Mallman's social-historical approach become obvious. For example this leads them both to reject the theory of 'Stalinisation'. The article shows that Gotthardt, as well as Mallmann, had come to questionable conclusions on the development of the KPD of the Weimar Republic by focusing on events outside of their context in time and space.

Beeinflussen Regierungen die parlamentarische Tagesordnung? Agendakontrolle und Zeitverteilung im britischen Unterhaus und im Deutschen Bundestag

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Michael Koß ◽  
Miryam Tan
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
National Importance ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
German Bundestag

Do governments use their control of the parliamentary agenda to influence the allocation of plenary time and devote relatively less time to important legislation? Using an original dataset comprising all plenary debates during two parliamentary sessions each in the British House of Commons and the German Bundestag in which all (legislative and non-legislative) debates on matters of national importance are identified, one can find no support for this claim . Both in absolute and relative terms, more legislative time is allocated to important legislation under centralized agenda control in the House of Commons . If one additionally considers non-legislative debates, the relative shares of plenary time devoted to important topics is similar . However, in absolute terms, more than twice as much time is allocated to important topics in the House of Commons than in the Bundestag .

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