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Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis
Author(s) -
Spenkuch Jörg L.,
Tillmann Philipp
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
american journal of political science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.347
H-Index - 170
eISSN - 1540-5907
pISSN - 0092-5853
DOI - 10.1111/ajps.12328
Subject(s) - protestantism , elite , ballot , conservatism , politics , nazism , voting , political science , explanatory power , power (physics) , legislature , socioeconomic status , political economy , religious studies , sociology , positive economics , law , economics , philosophy , demography , epistemology , population , physics , quantum mechanics
In Weimar Germany, the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of extremist parties. We establish that constituencies' religious composition is a key empirical predictor of Nazi vote shares—dwarfing the explanatory power of any other demographic or socioeconomic variable. Even after carefully accounting for observational differences, Catholics were far less likely to vote for the NSDAP than their Protestant counterparts. The evidence suggests that this disparity was, in large part, due to the sway of the Catholic Church and its dignitaries. At the same time, we show that attempts to immunize Catholics against the radical left failed to achieve the desired result. To explain the puzzling asymmetry in the Church's influence at the ballot box, we develop a simple theoretical framework of elite influence in electoral politics.