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Faculty of Social Sciences, Economics, and Business Administration

Chair of Empirical Political Science

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  9. New article in Paliamentary Affairs

New article in Paliamentary Affairs

Ulrich Sieberer and Michael Herrmann show that the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848/49 followed the logic of a parliamentary democracy.

Ulrich Sieberer and Michael Herrmann (University of Konstanz) demonstrate in a new article published in Parliamentary Affairs that the Frankfurt Assembly (FA) of 1848/49 functioned according to the rules of a parliametnary democracy.

The article demonstrates that the provisional national cabinet ('provisionary central power') was formally dependent on the support of a parliamentary majority and had to resign in practice if it lacked majority support on crucial political issues. Everyday voting behavior in the plenary was characterized by a clear government - opposition divide and the parties supporting the cabinet were much more likely to prevail in voting that opposition parties. These findings suggest that the first democratically elected pan-German parliament did not fail due to the behavior of its members or inefficient internal structures. Instead, resistence by conservative elites outside parliament, especially in the powerful states Prussia and Austria, played a decisive role.

Sieberer, Ulrich/Herrmann, Michael, 2019, Short-lived Parliamentarisation in 19th-century Germany: Parliamentary Government in the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848/1849, Parliamentary Affairs, Advance Access, doi: 10.1093/pa/gsz013. Link