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Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic Author(S): Sheri Berman Source: World Politics, Vol Trustees of Princeton University Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic Author(s): Sheri Berman Source: World Politics, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Apr., 1997), pp. 401-429 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25054008 . Accessed: 07/04/2013 14:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Trustees of Princeton University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World Politics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 155.247.167.222 on Sun, 7 Apr 2013 14:12:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC BySHERIBERMAN* everywhere one looks, from social science mono to to the of PRACTICALLYgraphs political speeches People magazine, concept "civil society" is in vogue. A flourishing civil society is considered to have helped bring down the Evil Empire and is held to be a prerequisite for success a the of post-Soviet democratic experiments; civil society in de is to in cline said threaten democracy America. Tocqueville is the the orist of the decade, having noted a century and a half ago that are "Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition to forever forming associations." Further, he linked such behavior the robustness of the nations representative institutions. "Nothing," he claimed, "more deserves attention than the intellectual and moral asso ciations in America_In democratic countries the knowledge of how to on combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; its progress depends that of all the others."1 as Today neo-Tocquevilleans such Robert Putnam argue that civil to society is crucial "making democracy work,"2 while authors like Francis Fukuyama and Benjamin Barber (who differ on everything else) agree that it plays a key role in driving political, social, and even economic outcomes.3 This new conventional wisdom, however, is not true as flawed. It is simply always that, Putnam (for example) puts was not it, "Tocqueville right: Democratic government is strengthened, * The author would like to thank Peter Berkowitz, Nancy Bermeo, David P. Conradt, Manfred Halpern, Marcus Kreuzer, Andy Markovits, Anna Seleny, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Carolyn Warner, and Gideon Rose, for comments and criticisms. 1 especially helpful Alexis de inAmerica (New York: and Row, 1988), 513, 517. 2 Tocqueville, Democracy Harper inModern Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions Italy (Princeton: Princeton Univer see sity Press, 1993); also idem, "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," fournal of no. Democracy 6 (January 1995); idem, "The Prosperous Community," American Prospect, 13 (Spring no. 1993); and idem, "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America," American Prospect, 24 (Winter 1996). 3 Fukuyama, Trust: Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York Free Press, 1995); and vs. Barber, Jihad McWorld How the Planet Is Both Falling Apart and Coming Together?and What This NY Means for Democracy (New York: Times Books, 1995). WorldPolitics 49 (April 1997), 401-29 This content downloaded from 155.247.167.222 on Sun, 7 Apr 2013 14:12:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 402 WORLD POLITICS weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society."4This essay will show how a robust civil society actually helped scuttle the twentieth century s most critical democratic experiment, Weimar Germany. Associational life flourished inGermany throughout the nineteenth and in the twentieth Yet in contrast to what early century. neo-Tocque of villean theories would predict, high levels associationism, absent strong and responsive national government and political parties, served to unite It was fragment rather than German society. weak political a was institutionalization rather than weak civil society that Germany's main problem during theWilhelmine andWeimar eras. As Samuel almost three decades societies with active Huntington noted ago, highly and mobilized publics and low levels of political institutionalization into even often degenerate instability, disorder, and violence;5 German a classic of this in ac political development provides example dynamic tion. During the interwar period in particular, Germans threw them selves into their clubs, voluntary associations, and professional organi zations out of frustration with the failures of the national government and political parties, thereby helping to undermine theWeimar Repub lic and facilitate Hitler s rise to power. In addition, Weimar s rich asso ciational life provided a critical training ground for eventual Nazi cadres and a base from which the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)could launch itsMachtergreifung (siezure of power). Had never German civil society been weaker, the Nazis would have been so cause or able to capture many citizens for their eviscerate their op so ponents swiftly. A striking implication of this analysis is that a flourishing civil soci not ety does necessarily bode well for the prospects of liberal democ to racy. For civil society have the beneficial effects neo-Tocquevilleans context to posit, the political has be right: absent strong and responsive an active serve to political institutions, increasingly civil society may a undermine, rather than strengthen, political regime. Political institu a tionalization, in other words, may be less chic topic these days than civil society, but it is logically prior and historically more important. As a "a Huntington put it, well-ordered civic polity requires recognizable . and stable pattern of institutional authority political institutions [must be] sufficiently strong to provide the basis of a legitimate politi cal order andworking political community."Without such political in trust to stitutions, societies will lack and the ability define and realize 4 Putnam (fn. 2, Work), 182. 5 Making Democracy Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). This content downloaded from 155.247.167.222 on Sun, 7 Apr 2013 14:12:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC 403 their common interests.6 Political scientists need to remember that Tocqueville himself considered Americans' political associations to be as as to more important their nonpolitical ones, and they need examine two closely how the interact in different situations.7 Neo-Tocquevillean Theories The logic of neo-Tocquevillean theories bears closer examination. it turns are not to Contemporary scholars, out, the first "rediscover" the great Frenchman, nor even the first to link group bowling and political development.8 After World War II several social scientists also claimed to have in a to found associational life key understanding democracy's success or failure. During the 1950s and 1960s social scientists such asWilliam Korn hauser and Hannah Arendt turn the of helped concept "mass society" into a powerful theory for explaining the disintegration of democracy and the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.9 This school believed that was Europe's slide into barbarism greased by, among other factors, the across collapse of intermediate associations much of the Continent dur the interwar the to Mass ing years; epigraph Kornhausers Politics of So was s men are to or to ciety Tocqueville warning that "if remain civilized art must become so, the of associating together grow and improve in same the ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased."10 6 Ibid., 82-83,5-25. 7 W. Michael Foley and Bob Edwards, "The Paradox of Civil Society," Journal ofDemocracy 1 (July 1996); Larry Diamond, "Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation," Journal of Democracy 5 (July 1994); Theda Skocpol, "The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American Democracy" (Presidential address for the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, New no. Orleans, October 12, 1996); and idem, "Unravelling from Above," American Prospect, 25 1996). (March-April8 A distinction toMax Weber; see fn. 23 below. 9 apparendy belonging William Kornhauser, The Politics ofMass Society (Glencoe, 111.:Free Press, 1959); and Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973). See also Sig mund Permanent Neumann, Revolution (New York: Harper, 1942); Karl Mannheim, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980); Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Rinehart, 1941); Edward Shils, "The Theory of Mass Society," in Philip Olson, as a ed., America Mass Society (New York: Free Press, 1963); and E. V. Walter, "'Mass Society': The an out Late Stages of Idea," Social Research 31 (Winter 1964). It should be pointed that the concept of mass a one most society has variety of different interpretations. Apart from the discussed here, the well term known usage of the is associated with Jos? Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of theMasses (New York: a W. W. Norton, 1994), and other theories of cultural decay. For recent discussion of
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