Bloomsbury Embracing Democracy in Modern Germany: Political Citizenship and Participation, 1871-2000

Over the course of the modern era, the traditional stereotype of authoritarian Germans has given way as they have become (mostly) model democrats. This book examines 130 years of history to comprehensively address the central questions relating to this for the first time: How and why did this process occur? What has democracy meant to various Germans? And, finally, how stable is their, or indeed anyones, democracy? Looking at six German regimes across twelve decades, this study allows you to see how and why Germans have chosen to be politically active (even under dictatorships), the enormous range of conceptions of political culture and democracy they have held; and how the interactions between these factors produced instability and stability at different times. Michael L. Hughes also makes clear that recent surges of support for populism and authoritarianism have not come out of nowhere, but are inherent in long-standing contestations about democracy and political citizenship. Hughes argues that democracy in Germany or elsewhere is not a happy ending story of adversity overcome; it is an ongoing, open-ended process whose ultimate outcome remains uncertain.