Germany's 'Leitkultur' discussion 'Bowling for fascism'?

What a cruel male-dominated society

Germany's Interior Minister & Chief Anti-Muslim Hate Monger Tommi de Maizière had a stroke of genius over a cuppa coffee and Platenkuchen. Things were not exactly aligning with what a true teutonic German likes, ORDER and KULTUR. So he went into subcutaneous and subconscious ​ intellectual overdrive and penned a piece and called it "We are not Burka". Just so you know.

Thus was born "The German Leitkultur Ten Points Program", aka the Constitution of the Willing, at the end of a cold month of April in the 17th year of 2000. In his tenets he waxes, not particularly eloquent I might add, about conduct and social capital that permeate​s the country Germany in his view.

Not that the subject Leitkultur had never been mentioned before, but only this time is was invested with some real though not tender flesh. Unless you are a diehard teutonic German, it makes for odd reading but then, the minister is not a gifted conversationalist to begin with.

As it so happened, I ventured across a Pdf on Nber.org with the intriguing title 'Bowling for fascism'. Now you got to be careful in fucking Bavaria and their courts because potentially just by mentioning this slightly funny sounding title you might run afoul of one of Germany's sick § 86 STGB laws. Mayhaps.

Anyway. This is a very interesting study, unless you believe in the rather crude and hairraising way of explaining the rise of fascism in Germany with Dear Leader Adolf just having been a cunning and drugged nutcase who conned his innocent subjects into something they actually and deep down really did not want to do, or how about the mesmerizing oratory feats of Jo Goebbels who put the people in his Charles-Manson-like spell, or the splendid swan-white uniform of Goering promising nirvana soon. The authors examine how social capital contributed to the rise of fascism in Germany.

I could not help but think of Tommi de Maizière's piece in Die Zeit with his odd and staid phraseology. A phraseology that smacks of bigotry, nationalism, of 'Schrebergarten' idyll, while at the same time sounding daft, churlish and unrefined.

So I picked out two of his ten points strong Leitkultur. Judge for yourself:

5. We are a nation of culture. Hardly any country is as shaped by culture and philosophy as Germany. Germany has greatly influenced the cultural development of the whole world. Bach and Goethe "belong" to the whole world and they were Germans. We have our own understanding of the importance of culture in our society. It is self-evident that music is played at a political ceremony or at a school anniversary. At the opening of a large concert hall - as a matter of course - the Federal President, representatives from government, parliament, jurisprudence and society are on the spot. Hardly a country has so many theaters per inhabitant as Germany. Every county is proud of its music school. Culture in a broad sense, our gaze on it and what we do for it is also part of us.

10. We have a mutual collective recollection of places and memories. The Brandenburg Gate and the 9th of November, for example, are part of such collective memories. Or win the world championships. In addition regional events: carnival, folk festivals. The native roots, the market places of our cities. The affinity with places, smells and traditions. Mentalities of territorial association, the sound of the language recognized by everybody, belongs to us and shape our country.

Here is the ABSTRACT of the study 'Bowling for Fascism'.

Social capital is often associated with desirable political and economic outcomes. This paper contributes to the literature exploring the “dark side” of social capital, examining the downfall of democracy in interwar Germany. We collect new data on the density of associations in 229 German towns and cities. Denser networks of clubs and societies went hand-in-hand with a more rapid rise of the Nazi Party. Towns with one standard deviation higher association density saw at least 15% faster Nazi Party entry. All types of societies – from veteran associations to animal breeders, chess clubs and choirs – positively predict NS Party entry. Party membership, in turn, is correlated with electoral success. These results suggest that social capital aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany’s first democracy. Crucially, we examine the question when a vibrant civic society can have corrosive effects. We show that the effects of social capital depended on the political context – in federal states with more stable governments, higher association density was not associated with faster Nazi Party entry.

On page 5

Relative to the existing literature, we make the following contributions: Our paper is the first to show  –  on the basis of detailed cross-sectional data – that social capital can undermine and help to destroy a democratic system. This adds a new dimension to the “dark  side” of social capital. Second, we demonstrate that the positive relationship between social capital and the rate of joining  an extreme party is not simply a reflection of preexisting differences in ideological outlook. Our  results are equally strong for bowling, singing, and animal breeding clubs, etc. This implies that  even civic associations without a militaristic agenda can have negative effects. Third, we find that  association density did not only  boost Nazi Party membership, but also helped the party win more  votes. Finally, we find an important interaction with political stability – the Nazi Party was  particularly successful at exploiting social capital in federal states with weak governance.


Here is their Conclusion

When is social capital beneficial?  Tocqueville pioneered the argument that social capital is crucial  for democracy. At the same time, he already  pointed out  that  “the  liberty  of association is  only  a  source  of  advantage  and  prosperity  to some  nations, it  may  be perverted …and … changed into a  cause  of  destruction”  (Tocqueville  1835, Vol.  I, Ch. 12).  Using  the case of  interwar  Germany,  we show  that  a vigorous  civic society  can  indeed help to undermine  the  existing  democratic  order. There, vibrant  networks  of  clubs  and associations  facilitated  the rise of  the  Nazi  Party.  New  data  on  associations  and clubs  in 229  German  cities  from  the  interwar  period  show  that  where there  were  more grass-root social  and  civic  organizations, the  Nazi  Party  grew  markedly  faster.  This  is  true  both for the  party’s  early  years  and during its  final  ascendancy  to  power, after  the  start  of  the  Great Depression.  Association  density  also  predicts  the NSDAP’s  electoral  success  –  in part because  a  strong  organizational  base  with hundreds  of  thousands  of  members  facilitated canvassing  during the  elections. Our findings  highlight  the  importance  of  personal, face-to-face interactions  for  the rise of  a radical  new  movement.  In this  way, dense  networks  of associations  contributed directly  to the  eventual  collapse  of  democracy, leading  to one  of history’s  most destructive  regimes.

Our  main  finding  is  in  stark  contrast to  an  earlier  literature  that blamed  Germany’s path to totalitarian rule  on a  “civic  non-age”  of  low  social  capital  (Stern 1972), and Nazi entry  on rootless,  isolated individuals  in a  modernized society  (Arendt  1973;  Shirer 1960).46  Our  study  also extends  the  important  findings  of  Acemoglu et  al. (2014)  by showing  that social  capital can  not only  be  built by  autocratic  leaders  to  entrench  their  rule – but  that  pre-existing  social  capital  can  foster  the  rise  of  undemocratic  regimes.  Why is  social  capital  associated with benign political  outcomes  in some  contexts, but not in  others?  We  examine  differences  in  political stability  at the  state  level.  Overall, Weimar  Germany’s  institutions  did  not  work  well  –  governments  were  weak and shortlived, economic  policy  often failed, and extremist  parties  blossomed (Bracher  1978). At the  same  time,  some  states  (including  Prussia)  were  bastions  of  well-functioning  republican institutions.  We  use  an indicator of  state-level  government  stability  to show  that  where governments  changed rapidly, the  link between association density  and Nazi  Party  entry was  much stronger  than in  stable states.  Where the  same parties  formed  stable governments, social  capital’s  corrosive  influence  disappears  in our  data. Therefore, the effects  of  social  capital  depend crucially  on the  political  and institutional  context. Rather than being  an unambiguous  force  for  good, our  results  suggest  that  social  capital  itself  is neutral  –  a tool  that  can be  used for  both  good or  ill.

(Pages 30/31)

BOWLING FOR FASCISM: SOCIAL CAPITAL AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY
Shanker Satyanath, Nico Voigtlaender, Hans-Joachim Voth

Working Paper 19201
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19201

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
July 2013
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