Bowling for fascism: Social capital and the rise of the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany, 1919-33

Social capital a dense network of associations facilitating cooperation within a community typically leads to positive political and economic outcomes, as demonstrated by a large literature following Putnam. A growing literature emphasizes the potentially "dark side" of social capital. This paper examines the role of social capital in the downfall of democracy in interwar Germany by analyzing Nazi party entry rates in a cross-section of towns and cities. Before the Nazi Party's triumphs at the ballot box, it built an extensive organizational structure, becoming a mass movement with nearly a million members by early 1933. We show that dense networks of civic associations such as bowling clubs, animal breeder associations, or choirs facilitated the rise of the Nazi Party. The effects are large: Towns with one standard deviation higher association density saw at least one-third faster growth in the strength of the Nazi Party. IV results based on 19th century measures of social capital reinforce our conclusions. In addition, all types of associations veteran associations and non-military clubs, "bridging" and "bonding" associations positively predict NS party entry. These results suggest that social capital in Weimar Germany aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany's first democracy.

Compensating wage differentials and voluntary job changes: Evidence from West Germany

Does the labor market place wage premia on jobs that involve physical strain,job, insecurity or bad regulation of hours? This paper derives bounds on themonetary returns to these job disamenities in the West German labor market.We show that in a market with dispersion in both job characteristics andwages, the average wage change of workers who switch jobs voluntarily and optfor consuming more (less) disamenities,provides an upper (lower) bound on themarket return to the disamenity. Using longitudinal information from workersin the German Socio Economic Panel, we estimate an upper bound of 5% and alower bound of 3.5% for the market return to work strain in a job.

A Filosofia Política em Paul Ricoeur. Um Olhar a Partir do Paradoxo Político

Este trabalho gira em torno da filosofia política de Paul Ricoeur, tendo, como foco principal, a compreensão do conceito de Paradoxo Político. Nas palavras de Paul Ricoeur, é preciso pensar conjuntamente quer a racionalidade quer a irracionalidade do político, porquanto racionalidade específica, mal específico, tal é a dupla e paradoxal originalidade do político. Neste sentido, cabe à filosofia política a tarefa de explicitar esta originalidade e elucidar o seu carácter paradoxal. Reflecte-se, igualmente, sobre o funcionamento do poder político, a sua autonomia, e questões de grande actualidade que o preocuparam, tais como, a fragilidade da democracia e o Estado de Direito, existentes na praxis actual bem como os eventuais abusos do poder. Segundo Ricoeur, o mal-estar actual das democracias deve-se essencialmente ao facto de que a soberania do Estado se tornar, no seu próprio seio, indecifrável em virtude da complexidade das esferas de pertença que governam a sociedade civil. Nesta Perspectiva, o projecto político-filosófico do pensador francês, afigura-se fundamental para iluminar a reflexão sobre o paradoxo político e a problemática do poder.

Inflation, political instability and stockmarket volatility in interwar Germany

What determined the volatility of asset prices in Germany between thewars? This paper argues that the influence of political factors has beenoverstated. The majority of events increasing political uncertainty hadlittle or no effect on the value of German assets and the volatility ofreturns on them. Instead, it was inflation (and the fear of it) that islargely responsible for most of the variability in asset returns.