Democratization in Germany: A Reappraisal

Abstract

The idea of a Stunde Null, a zero hour, when difficult historical legacies could be put aside, was a useful construct that helped the postwar Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) establish the first successful German democracy.' Disregard of historical legacies also conditioned the ways American political science explained the success of the FRG. In this case, though, the positive rather than the negative was disregarded. Among the factors pinpointed as important to democratization in Germany, little attention has been paid to an older tradition of historical political economy that explained Germany's difficulties with democracy in terms of disparities in regional development and class alliances in German society. This explanation attributed the failure of German democracy to the domination of the East Elbian Junker aristocracy in both Prussia and the German Empire and its alliance with sectors of Germany's bourgeoisie. Their compact, based on high tariffs that protected the ryebased agricultural economy in the east and German industry, created a dual economic and social structure in which the western parts of Germany resembled the developed democracies to the west, while feudal socioeconomic arrangements were preserved in the east. Although this theory explains Germany's past failures with democracy as a product of crucial differences between its east and west and was propounded by three important twentieth century social scientists, Weber, Gerschenkron, and Moore, political science has not assigned it a central place in explaining the success of West German democratization. This article will demonstrate its relevance in explaining the democratic success of the FRG and the relevance of comparative political economy to the study of democratization.