Voting for a Hybrid Regime: Social and Economic Determinants of Constitutional Choice in 19th Century Germany

In 1867, the Constituting Reichstag adopted the constitution of the newly founded North German Confederation. The constitution, establishing a legislature elected through universal male suffrage but retaining executive power exclusively in the hands of the monarch, represented a classic negotiated settlement between the conservative and liberal elites of the country. A few years later, this constitutional framework was adopted by the German Empire and remained in place until the revolution of 1918 at the end of the First World War. This study examines what economic and social factors motivated the voting behaviour of Reichstag members on amendments and the adoption of the constitution. Methodologically, it draws on existing political economy theories of democratization to conduct a competitive theory test. The empirical analysis is based on a novel dataset combining roll call votes, constituency characteristics, and biographical information of parliamentarians. The results of the study generate new insights into the applicability of different democratisation theories, the political conflict structures at the time, and the determinants of regime development in one of the canonical European cases that informed much of our classic theorising about first-wave democratisation.