%0 Journal Article
%T Political conflict in Bismarck¡¯s Germany: An analysis of parliamentary voting, 1867¨C1890
%A Frank M. H£¿ge
%J Party Politics
%@ 1460-3683
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1354068817702058
%X Imperial Germany is a prominent historical case in the study of Western Europe¡¯s political development. This article investigates the number and content of political conflict dimensions from the foundation of the modern German state in 1867 to the end of Bismarck¡¯s reign as Chancellor in 1890. Methodologically, it applies dimension-reducing statistical methods to a novel data set of content-coded parliamentary roll call votes. The analysis suggests that the emergence of the Catholic Centre Party in 1871 permanently transformed the conflict space from a single liberal-conservative divide to a two-dimensional space that distinguished positions on socio-economic issues and regime matters, respectively. The fact that positions on redistributive and regime issues were not aligned implies that theories stressing economic inequality as a driver for regime change are of limited applicability. Instead, the case of Imperial Germany highlights the importance of cross-cutting non-economic societal cleavages and the role of societal and political organizations in drawing attention to and perpetuating these divisions
%K dimensionality
%K Imperial Germany
%K political space
%K Reichstag
%K roll call votes
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354068817702058