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Cited by 1,108Political Theory and DemocracyPolitical Conflict and GovernanceEuropean Political History Analysis

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 95 of the 95 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic

Berman, Sheri·1997·World Politics
DOI 10.1353/wp.1997.0008
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Abstract

Practically everywhere one looks these days the concept of “civil society” is in vogue. Neo-Tocquevillean scholars argue that civil society plays a role in driving political, social, and even economic outcomes. This new conventional wisdom, however, is flawed. It is simply not true that democratic government is always strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society. This essay shows how a robust civil society helped scuttle the twentieth century's most critical democratic experiment, Weimar Germany. An important implication of this analysis is that under certain circumstances associationism and the prospects for democratic stability can actually be inversely related. To know when civil society activity will take on oppositional or even antidemocratic tendencies, one needs to ground one's analyses in concrete examinations of political reality. Political scientists should remember that Tocqueville considered Americans' political associations to be as important as their nonpolitical ones, and they should therefore examine more closely the connections between the two under various conditions.

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Research works printed but not linked: 31

  1. Clines, 1996, “Washington's Troubles Hit Island of Affluence,”, New York Times, A19
  2. Harsch, 1993, German Social Democracy and the Rise of Fascism
  3. Koshar, 1990, Splintered Classes
  4. Winkler, 1972, Mittehtand, Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus: Die politische Entwicklung von Handwerk und Kleinhandel in der Weimarer Republik, 47
  5. Walter, 1964, “‘Mass Society’: The Late Stages of an Idea,”, Social Research, 31
  6. von Bethmann-Hollweg, 1919, Betrachtungen zum Weltkrieg, 1
  7. Bermeo, 1996, “Civil Society before Democracy”
  8. von Krüdener, 1989, Consequences of Inflation
  9. Dann, 1984, Vereinswesen und bürgerliche Gesellscaft in Deutschland
  10. 1993, “The Prosperous Community,”, American Prospect
  11. Shils, 1963, America as a Mass Society
  12. Childers, 1985, Die Nachiuirkungen der Inflation aufdie deutsche Geschichte
  13. McInnes, 1996, “Ortega and the Myth of the Mass,”, National Interest
  14. Kremdahl, 1982, Reformsozialismus und Sozialdemokratie
  15. Falter, 1991, Hitlers Wahler
  16. Neumann, 1942, Permanent Revolution
  17. Groh, 1973, Negative Integration und revolutionarer Attentismus
  18. Stegmann, 1970, Die Erben Bismarcks: Parteien und Verbdnde in der Spatphase des Wilhelminischen Deutschlands
  19. Blackbourn, 1993, The German Bourgeoisie
  20. Bermeo, 1996, Paper presented at the annual meeting
  21. 1927, “Berlin Stahlhelm Manifesto,”, Stahlhelm und Staat
  22. Blackbourn, 1984, Shopkeepers and Artisans in Nineteenth Century Europe
  23. Evans, 1986, The German Peasantry
  24. Skocpol, 1996, Presidential address for the annual meeting
  25. Winkler, 1972, “Klassenbewegung oder Volkspartei?”, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 8
  26. Holden, 1965, “Associations as Reference Groups: An Approach to the Problem,”, Rural Sociology, 30
  27. Stachura, 1983, The Nazi Machtergreifung
  28. Childers, 1986, The Formation of the Nazi Constituency
  29. Moeller, 1986, German Peasants and Agrarian Politics, 1914–1924
  30. Giner, 1976, Mass Society
  31. Peukert, 1989, The Weimar Republic, 230

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Metadata

Authors
Berman, S.
Affiliations
Princeton University (US)
Corresponding author
Berman, Sheri
ORCID
Berman, Sheri
Venue
World Politics
Publisher
Project MUSE
Published
1997-04
Volume
49
Issue
3
Pages
401-429
ISSN
  • 0043-8871 (ISSN-L)
  • 1086-3338
DOI
10.1353/wp.1997.0008
OpenAlex
W2135083689
Semantic Scholar
45d7e7d61f47e9d066246332621ed7046b9fdd04
Cited by
1,108
References
95
Citations by year
2026: 25 · 2025: 48 · 2024: 52 · 2023: 70 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 54 · 2019: 81 · 2018: 89 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 34 · 2014: 49 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 31
FWCI
47.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 5186 d)
Locations
  • World Politics (publishedVersion)
  • Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › European Political History Analysis
Keywords
civil society, Weimar Republic, collapse of democracy, associationism, democratic stability, political associations, Alexis de Tocqueville

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