Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Political Cleavages In The Weimar Republic and the Rise of National Socialism

  • Keynote Lecture
  • Published:
European Political Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The article deals with the question if the cleavage concept of Lipset and Rokkan can be applied to the rise of National Socialism at the polls and as a mass-integration party. Voter fluctuations within and between political camps are analysed by means of ecological regression analysis as well as the social composition of the NSDAP electorate. Furthermore the social fabric of NSDAP party members between 1925 and 1933 is decribed in terms of the cleavage concept.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. If we consider that the social characteristic ‚’Catholic’ encompasses both believers and nonbelievers and churchgoing and non-practicing members of the Catholic Church, we get a somewhat better idea of the immunizing function exerted by political Catholicism, since it only applies, of course, to practising Catholics. This does not necessarily imply that the Centre Party voters were more democratic or less authoritarian than the bulk of the National Socialist supporters (the same is certainly true with regard to the similarly immune partisans of the Communist Party).

References

  • Almond, G.A. and Powell, G.B. (1978) Comparative Politics. System, Process, and Politics, Boston/Toronto: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falter, J.W. (1991) Hitlers Wähler, München: C.H.Beck, pp. 429–440.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falter, J.W. (2013) Zur Soziographie des Nationalsozialismus. Studien zu den Wählern und Mitgliedern der NSDAP, Historical Social Research 25: 7–374..

    Google Scholar 

  • Falter, J.W. and Bömermann, H. (1989) ‘Das Wählerpotential Politischer Teilkulturen in Der Weimarer Republik’, in K. Megerle and D. Lehnert (eds.) Politische Identität und nationale Gedenktage. Zur politischen Kultur in der Weimarer Republik, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 281–305.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Falter, J., Lindenberger, T. and Schumann, S. (1986) Wahlen und Abstimmungen in der Weimarer Republik. Materialien zum Wahlverhalten 1919–1933, München: C.H.Beck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipset, S.M. (1960) Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lipset, S.M. and Rokkan, S. (1990) ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments’, in Mair (1990: 91–38), in P. Mair (ed.) The West European Party System, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 91–138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lohmöller, J.-B. and Bömermann, H. (1993) ’Ökologische Inferenz: Eine Anwendungsorientierte Einführung’, in Berliner Arbeitshefte und Berichte zur sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung, Band 82 Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, Zentralinstitut für sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stinchcombe, A. (1975) ‘Social Structure and Politics’, in F.I. Greenstein u and N.W. Po1sby (eds.) Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 3: Macropolitical Theory, Reading Mass: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winkler, J. (1992) Sozialstruktur und Parteiensystem in Deutschland 1912–1924, Historical Social Research 17 (1): 52–103.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johannes Gutenberg-University at Mainz, Saarstraße 21, Mainz, 55122, Germany

    jürgen w falter

Authors
  1. jürgen w falter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

This was originally delivered as the Stein Rokkan Lecture at the ECPR Joint Sessions, University of Mainz, 13 March 2013.

If and only if the relatively strict assumptions of this technique are met by the data will the estimates represent a true measure of the voter movement that actually occurred. If the data cannot satisfy these assumptions, these estimates may still be regarded as the statistically best indicators of the voter exchange that took place between the individual subcultures and parties. Unfortunately we are not able to determine from the available data if all the conditions of ecological regression analysis have been adequately satisfied. Furthermore, this technique is very sensitive to differing model specifications. Its results, therefore, should be interpreted quite cautiously and restricted to differences of magnitude, not to small percentage variations. I am, however, quite optimistic that the results approximate what actually happened, since different model specifications and various multiple ecological regression analyses based on different aggregations produce approximately the same results, which in turn closely coincide in magnitude with normal multiple regression analyses using so-called change variables. The following estimates of vote changes between parties and political camps were calculated on the basis of the Weimar Republic communities by means of an extension of ecological regression analysis using so-called moderator variables (Lohmöller and Bömermann, 1993).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

falter, j. Political Cleavages In The Weimar Republic and the Rise of National Socialism. Eur Polit Sci 13, 106–116 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2013.41

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2013.41

Keywords

Search

Navigation