Wie die große Politik ins kleine Dorf kam. Politische Mobilisierung der Landbevölkerung durch Katholisch-Konservative und Christlichsoziale

Abstract

How Big Politics Came to Small Villages. Political Mobilization of the Rural Population by Catholic Conservatives and the Christian Social Party. The study examines the politicization of the rural population in a region of the Habsburg Monarchy that was predominantly Catholic. The Christian Social Party was formed in rural areas as part of a Western and Central European-wide movement, emerging against the background of economic crisis and the culture wars (Kulturkampf) that pitched liberalism against the Roman Catholic Church. The Christian Social movement was a reaction to the liberal Zeitgeist, but at the same time it used modern means to mobilize the masses. Dissatisfied chaplains and young priests, who gradually saw their status threatened even in rural areas, were the most important actors, competing with liberal village teachers, who owed their heightened status to the suppression of church influence on schools. The rivalry between these representatives of the “village intelligentsia” provided crucial impulses for the politicization of the rural population.