Institutions and Innovation: Voters, Parties, and Interest Groups in the Consolidation of Democracy--France and Germany, 1870-1939 (review)

This study is an exercise in comparative political science. Its object is to offer generalizations about how electoral institutions influence the functioning of political parties. Accordingly, the author undertakes a historical comparison of electoral systems in France and Germany, primarily as they functioned—or failed to function—during the interwar period. He argues that French parties responded to the challenges posed by the Depression and fascism with much more innovation and flexibility than their German counterparts, and that the most powerful explanation for the difference is institutional. The French electoral system was based on single-member districts, which encouraged candidates' responsiveness to voters' concerns. By contrast, the German system was based on proportional representation and large voting districts, which encouraged the bureaucratic sclerosis and ideological rigidity of the German parties.

The book introduces a number of provocative and plausible propositions about the significance of electoral institutions, but the historical comparison is built on premises that are difficult to accept—starting with the proposition that institutions are somehow "transhistorical" phenomena. In order to isolate electoral institutions as an independent variable, Kreuzer must posit the basic comparability of the party systems in the two countries. He does so at such a high level of abstraction that historians of France and Germany will have difficulty recognizing the results. One problem is that he filters out differences of constitutional structure—the fact that German parties operated simultaneously in several electoral contexts. Another is that he filters out the Catholic Center party from the German case, principally "because there is no comparable party in France" (18). With this hole, the analytical framework imposes a degree of comparability on the two party systems, but it generates a lot of conclusions that are simply wrong. The analysis also remains innocent of current controversies among historians of the German electoral system, which focus on the play of cultural milieus in the behavior of the parties.

The dependent variable in the analysis is also suspect because it is ill-defined. The author argues that the French parties were more "entrepreneurial." They were more willing to take risks, adapt modern propaganda techniques—like "spirited stump speeches" (74)—and to embrace "Keynsian planism" (88) as an imaginative response to the Depression. Because entrepreneurialism is difficult to measure and Keynsianism is a capacious concept, the author's conclusions about both rest largely on shaky impressions.

These criticisms are not meant to contest the importance of electoral institutions for party behavior. They specifically address the utility of this "historical institutionalist" analysis for understanding historical institutions.