Government and representation in Austria and Germany

The Russian tsar was also emperor over the Russian empire, which included a number of previously autonomous states which had become joined to Russia. There was no real difference between these parts of the empire and the old Russian state in regard to the type of government, but social organisation could differ considerably. Local self-government was also not uniform over the empire. Yet the differences within Russia were much smaller than those in the empire of Austria-Hungary, but they were greater than those within Germany. The three countries deserve comparing not just because they were called empires but because they had a structure that was different from the national state of Western Europe. Germany was closest to the model, but centuries of divisions had made the sense of a national unity very diluted and many Germans resented what they regarded as Prussian domination. Domination was a common theme in the empires. Specific difficulties occurred when domination by a certain part of the population was to be combined with democratic reforms and influence by the people in general.

Austria

When Austria got a new constitution in 1867, after a treaty with Hungary that this country was to be a constitutional kingdom with the Austrian emperor as its head, it was made explicit that Austria (or rather “Cisleithania”, for it comprised several different geographical parts) would become a constitutional monarchy. The emperor himself used the word constitutional. In the constitutional committee that formed the draft unanimity arose that this meant ministerial responsibility. This concept was used, however, in a juridical sense only and no political responsibility was at hand before 1918. The significance of the concept was that the emperor could not sign decisions of the executive alone, but they had to be countersigned also by a minister who bore the responsibility for the legality of the decision. The committee members regarded this as the normal meaning of a constitutional government, which may have been approximately true in 1867. This limitation of absolutism was at hand in many countries since the early part of the nineteenth century.

The new constitution, which continued to be in force up to 1918 with some changes, did not reintroduce the “ Reichstag ” from 1848 but kept the “ Reichsrat ” (The Council of the Realm) as the name of the representation. The representation had two chambers, and there had been a continued tow between different groups in the Austrian Empire about the names of these chambers and how they should be selected from the beginning of the 1860s. Then, however, the Emperor had prevailed. His October 20 Diploma of 1860 made clear that he wanted reforms but they should be issued as statutes in his name, not as fundamental laws or a constitution.[4] The two chambers were called, on the monarch’s will, Herrenhaus (House of Lords) and Abgeordnetenhaus (House of Representatives). The former had no specific relation to the different parts of the empire; the latter consisted of representatives for the different parts selected by their Landtäge. An important reform was soon to come. In 1873 new election laws were promulgated, and we will come back to them.

The so-called Council of the Realm or parliament had a sort of advisory function but was something more. Its consent was required for legislation and in regard to foreign policy, war and financial resources for war-making a permanent “delegation” from the upper and lower houses of parliament should be heard. This “delegation” made out a complicated representation of the different Länder of the Empire. As regards legislation there also existed a provision that the delegation could veto new laws that had a common validity in all parts of the empire. This need to reach agreements was part of the ‘dualistic’ nature of the constitution,[5] regulating an empire consisting of two half-autonomous states (and these with altogether seventeen nationally different regions or Länder as their constituent parts).

From 1867 up to 1918 the ‘government’ of the Empire was a vague concept. There was no institution called government, but the word ‘ Regierung ’ in the constitution denoted the decision-making and the activities of the state as such.[6] There had been a ‘Council of the State’ from 1861 to 1867. This was a sort of political body close to the Emperor and selected by him, and it replaced an earlier ministerial council of the heads of central administrations. In the new constitution of 1867 this organ was taken away and formally abolished a year later.[7] In the constitution it was made clear that the governmental power was with the Emperor alone, and he could realise it through the ministers or administrative bodies.[8]

In principle the Emperor freely selected the ministers.[9] Consequently he spoke about ‘my government’ when he talked about the ministers. There was nothing in the constitution that justified to talk about them collectively, for they were thought to be engaged individually by the Emperor. However, the actual practice changed this. Governments, or ‘cabinets’ as they were called, had to be formed and the position of President of the Ministers (Ministerpräsident) again grew into importance. By 1900, when Ernest von Koerber formed his ‘cabinet’, it was quite clear that the intended President of the Ministers should try to gain the confidence of a majority in parliament for the type of ministry he wanted to form. Parties (mostly national groups) made clear their conditions for collaboration, often by naming a candidate for a certain ministerial post. For example, the Czechs wanted a Czech as head of the ministry of education. This did not mean that their conditions were accepted. Koerber tried to avoid pressure also by using people outside of the circle of politics.[10] Koerber had to fight seriously for his ‘cabinet’ all through the four years it lasted, and the final phase was full of new political obstruction, negotiations and combinations.[11] The President of the Ministers was the Emperor’s choice. As this head minister had to make his proposals pass the parliament, not anybody could manage, as was evident from Koerber’s very short-lived predecessors. The post required political skill and ability for negotiations with political parties.

Neither the post as President of Ministers nor the influence of parties on the formation of ‘cabinets’ was, however, made explicit in the constitution. As a collective body the ministers, then called ‘The Council of Ministers’, however had some important functions mentioned in the constitution, but they were few and mostly related to a state of emergency in the Empire. The President of the Ministers did, however, play a leading role in politics comparable to that of the Chancellor of the Realm in Germany. The national split made politics more difficult in Austria, and therefore the position as President of the Ministers was feebler. In addition to the ‘cabinet’ there was a joint council of ministers for the double monarchy headed by the minister of foreign affairs, which handled matters, which were common for ‘Cisleithania’ and the parts of the empire that were organised in the Hungarian monarchy.[12] This complication made the situation of the President of the Ministers even less decisive, for in these matters he had no direct influence but could work only through the Emperor as far as he had the ear of the monarch.

The ‘Cisleithanian’ ministers (as different from the ‘k.u.k.’[13] ministers, who managed the few things that were common to all parts of the double monarchy) were responsible to the parliament (Reichsrat). Any of the two chambers could give in accusations or charges against a minister, and these were treated in the State Court, which was the decision-making body. Thus, this was no political responsibility in its proper sense, but rather a legal one and, whatever the political overtones may have been, charges had to be dressed in a juridical form.[14]

The parliament (the official name continued to be Reichsrat but in common usage it was known as Parlament in German) was divided into two chambers. The upper chamber was a compromise between a chamber of hereditary pairs and a chamber of appointed members who were close to the government. Adult princes of the imperial family and “adult heads of distinguished noble families of great estates, to whom the Emperor had given the rank of hereditary Councillor of the Realm” (quoted from the fundamental law) and also all archbishops and bishops who had the rank of princes, were those who belonged to the chamber because of rank. The members of the second group were appointed for life. This group made it possible for the imperial power to create a wing of loyal followers in the upper chamber.[15]

The lower chamber was called Abgeordnetenhaus, which indicates that its members were seen as representatives of the people. After 1873 the Landtäge in the different Länder of ‘Cisleithania’ no longer selected these representatives, but they were directly elected. However, the elections were arranged as a representation of interests, similar to a representation by estate, and therefore the population was arranged into four “ Kurien ”. It was discussed, in 1873, to introduce a “ Kurie ”for workers, but this idea met hard opposition and was disliked by the Emperor, why it fell. The four first “ Kurien ” were: the first for owners of large estates and the highest taxpayers, the second for cities, market towns and industrial towns, the third for chambers of commerce and trade and the fourth for parishes in the countryside.[16] From 1895 a further “ Kurie ” was added for “general voters”. Social democrats, who in 1893 had asked for general and equal suffrage (for men), initially took the credit for the reform but their members of parliament continued to work for the general suffrage for men that became law only in 1907.[17]

In the elections persons were individually assigned to a “ Kurie ” and the franchise was individual. As the organisation was local for each “ Kurie ” it meant that each seat in the chamber cost very differently in terms of votes. This holds both within each “ Kurie ” and between the different “ Kurien ”. In general terms this meant that one seat corresponded to 64 estate owners, 26 heads of chambers of commerce, 4185 franchised city inhabitants, 12290 franchised countryside inhabitants and 69503 franchised members of the general electors’ “ Kurie ”.[18] These relations formed the starting point, with many differences in different parts of the realm, where Vienna was outstanding by its great number of inhabitants but without a corresponding number of seats in the parliament. In effect the number of votes that a seat cost varied also by the political mobilisation of voters and the participation in elections.

Parties were allowed to work both in parliament and in society at large. In fact, the so-called ‘clubs’ of the parliament were enormously important under the constitution of 1867 up to 1918. These parliamentary fractions were dominated by national questions – the ´Cisleithanian’ part of the Habsburg monarchy harboured quite of number of different nationalities and the struggle for national liberties was strong. However, there were also ideological matters involved, and their importance grew gradually. The social democrats were organised from 1874, the “Christlich”-Social party and the German-National Party from 1895 and the German Progressive Party from 1897. These parties (excepting the German nationals) with their foundation in membership and ideological conviction among citizens had difficulties to stand up to the burning nationality struggles that dominated the order of the day. The result was that only the social democrats were really forming a strong national organisation along ideological lines. The election struggles were often dominated by national demands from different sides and a socially determined ideology had difficulties to play a dominating role. Of course, elected members of parliament were not exclusively national in their outlook but combined ideologically based convictions with their standpoints to national questions. The types of combinations also vary and, sometimes, national outlook of Germans, Czechs, Slovenes, Italians, Poles, Ruthenes, etc., dominated over ideological posture and in other instances ideology had the upper hand and made clear which national politicians were first of all conservatives, liberals and social democrats. This made the political landscape of the parliament more diverse than in the parliaments of most other countries.[19]

The governments of the last years of the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth century tried to make questions of interest, which might be common to the members of different “ Kurien ”, play a big enough role to overshadow both ideological and foremost national cleavages. The introduction in 1897 of the fifth “ Kurie ” was a step in this direction. With the enfranchisement of more than five million new voters it meant a considerable extension of voting rights and made possible a new range of political mobilisation in society. The influence of these voters was, however, negligible, as they had to pay a lot more votes per seat in parliament than those of the other “ Kurien ”.

Germany

A general, direct and equal suffrage for men had been introduced in the North German Federation and was inherited into the German Empire when the Federation was transformed to the Reich in 1871. This federative state continued to consist of participant states and, in fact, its constitution was a very slight revision of the constitution of the federation, where the Realm had replaced the federation and the Emperor had replaced the presiding committee.[20]

In regard to this wide dispersion of the right to vote a comment must be made regarding the system of the Empire. There was an important difference between the elections to the parliament of the empire (the Reichstag) and the elections to the parliament (Landtag) of the most important of the participant states of the federative Empire, Prussia. In Prussia the general suffrage for men was combined with a class-wise election system, which meant that suffrage was far from equal.[21]

A council was created to give a proper influence to the participant states in the legislation of the realm. This council (Bundesrat) had 58 members, out of whom 17 were from Prussia, while the other 24 states altogether had 41. The balance between Prussian and other members was calculated to preserve a decisive influence for Prussia and make sure that it could not be overruled in constitutional matters and questions of military law or customs duties. However, there is another aspect to the council, which is less often observed. It had the function of an upper house, and a very selective such chamber. Thus the radicalism of the Reichstag was matched by an institution whose members were not elected but appointed by the governments of the participant states and whose consent was required in the matters that were the main task of the Reichstag. [22]

Another distinctive trait of the system of the Empire was that the power of the parliament was limited. In fact some very important parts of the decision-making were reserved for the Emperor. The two main fields where the Emperor had a decisive voice were the military high command and the foreign policy. Neither parliament nor Chancellor (or government) could interfere in these fields, if he did not ask them for advice. The Chancellor led the domestic policy of the Empire. All decisions of the executive regarding civil matters required his countersignature. An effort to balance his influence can be traced behind the introduction in 1878 of certain high offices of the realm. In 1900 the Secretaries of State for these high offices became permanent Prussian members of the federative council which meant a tightening of the bonds between the Prussian state and the Reich. [23]

This means that the parliament had a rather limited power. Its competence comprised mainly legislation (where it had a right of initiative and its positive decision was required). It had also acquired a right to be informed of the budget and its influence had grown into a right of check and control of the finances of the Reich in the first years of the 20^th century.

In fact, the parliament had acquired another important function in the first years of the twentieth century. It had to be consulted over the Emperor’s choice of Chancellor of the Empire. This was not a formal right, but a de facto working partnership and division of power. The reason was simple. The power of the parliament over legislation (that could be blocked) and its influence in budget matters would make it very difficult for the Chancellor to act as a chief of the executive (on behalf of the Emperor), if the he had not a sort of positive relation to the parliament. Therefore the Emperor tried to choose persons who were known to have reasonably good relations to a majority of the members of parliament. As no formal voting of confidence took place, the relations could change quickly and late Chancellors learnt to know that their relation to the Reichstag was precarious.[24]

No formalised institution of ‘government’ existed in the Reich. While participant states might have ministers who headed ministries that had to take care of the affairs of certain areas, the realm as such had no ministers and no body of government. Beside the institution of Chancellor there was only one official who had a top position in the realm from the its inception in 1871, and that was the secretary of state who headed the Office of Foreign Affairs (Auswärtiges Amt), which came to be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A few years later a Reichsjustizamt (Office of Justice of the Realm) was created (1877), and later followed an Office for the Interior (1879) and an Office for the Marine (1889). After 1907 some new offices were created and especially during World War I the number of these creations grew. The reason for translating the names of these Reichsämter with Offices is that their heads were not given an independent position in political matters. They were called secretaries of state (Staatssekretäre), not ministers, and they were directly subordinated to the Chancellor, who was the only official with a specified responsibility for the selected policy.

This does not mean, however, that the Chancellor was a party politician. He was the head of the bureaucracy that handled the matters of the realm and different heads of specific administrations were attached to his execution of power. The Chancellor was in the first hand the choice of the Emperor and if not vetoed by the parliament he was appointed to his office according to the will of the Emperor. It was stated from the inception that the Chancellor should be responsible for the politics that was conducted. Very soon this responsibility became only a fiction as there were no means for the Reichstag to hold him accountable for a policy that the majority did not like. The control over the budget, which might have been a means to bring pressure on the Chancellor, became less important as it was clear that the Chancellor (and the Emperor) had the power to dissolve the Reichstag.

The position of the Chancellor turned out to be even more central in many respects than the position of the Emperor. He alone led and gave instructions to bureaucrats in all matters that had to do with internal policy. He was also the special advisor of the Emperor in the matters that was the specific domain of the head of state, military command matters and foreign policy.

The circle around the Emperor consisted of bureaucrats. Prussian bureaucracy was competent and well educated but, as Wehler stresses, the ‘liberal’ bureaucrats were gradually removed and forced into unemployment or made to take up positions s solicitors or barristers. Only strict conservatives were tolerated in all bureaucracies of Prussia and the Reich. [25]

The Staatssekretäre were not politicians. They had no political standing in relation to the parties in or outside of the parliament and they were not politically responsible to the parliament. At the end of the nineteenth century several of them became Prussian delegates to the Bundesrat, which was a sort of upper chamber in the representation and where members were appointed by the states that participated in the Reich. This means that the Reichstag, the lower chamber, could not demand their dismissal for political reasons. There was not even a juridical responsibility for them, which means that they could not be brought to court for what they did as ministers. Politics was very carefully kept apart from the executive.

Politics was a matter for parties. During the last decades of the nineteenth century a number of membership parties had grown up. The oldest and most important was the social democratic party with a wide-ranging membership (in the early years o the twenties century it had around 300 000 members). [the number?????]. In fact it continued to be the only party with a wide membership up to the end of the Empire. Even if other parties, such as the Zentrum, did not organise a mass membership, some of them were supported by other types of mass associations. Such organisations did not want to be parties in the strict sense and they did not set up their own candidates for elections. Examples of this type of organisations were the Association for the German Fleet and the more loosely knit Imperial Association against Social Democracy. Sometimes the distinction between such political organisations and parties became obscure.[26]

One important peculiarity of the German system of government is the specific solution of the federative nature of the Reich. In the constitution of 1871 Prussia had got a specific position in the realm. The Emperor of the Reich was also the King of Prussia, and the Chancellor of the Reich was at the same time Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs and normally also Ministerpräsident, Prime Minister, of Prussia. The ministries in Prussia were organised in collegial form, which made all cooperation a question of negotiation. Further, the ministers obeyed to the king as King of Prussia, not as Emperor of Germany, and even Bismarck, who designed the federation, insisted on the right of the King of Prussia to reign without interference. In sum this meant that Prussian ministers were not subordinated to the Staatssekretäre of the Reich.[27]

The ministers of Prussia were bureaucrats who led firmly organised bureaucratic organisations. Not only in these was the bureaucratic element fundamental for the Prussian system of government. Also in the Landtag, which consisted of two chambers, civil servants constituted a considerable part. In the upper house the agrarian nobility formed the majority, but the civil servants organised a minority party, and in the lower house they were dominant. While the work within the Landtag was characterised by negotiations and efforts to find a compromise between differences of opinion, it often took a clear position against the politics o the Reich and its organs, not least against the Reichstag with a much more democratic basis. This created a complication and it irritated the Chancellor that “the Prussian Landtag tried to behave as an “Upper House of the Realm” and correct decisions of the other big parliament in Berlin”. It wanted to defend ‘preussen’ against the ‘Reich’ and disregarded that 236 of the 397 members of the Reichstag were elected from Prussian districts.[28]

The role of the Reichstag and the political parties in Germany has been a very controversial topic during the last three decades. When Hans-Ulrich Wehler developed his thesis of the ‘half absolutist’ and ‘pseudo-constitutional’ form of government in the German Empire, he reacted against the long tradition of stressing the ideals and virtues of the Prussian model.[29] Several researchers concurred with his views,[30] but a critical view has grown over years.[31] Now Wehler’s critics hardly sympathise any more with the political system of these days (although there may have been elements of such sympathy in the first reactions). They rather want to stress that the metaphors of ‘dictatorship’, ‘ceasarism’, ‘bonapartism’, ‘half-absolutism’ etc. tend to obscure the relations that held between Emperor and Chancellor on the one hand and the parliament of the realm. The Reichstag was never a nullity in the system of government. It rather somewhat increased its influence in the first years of the twentieth century, and this was due not to constitutional change but to a political interplay between Chancellor and parties in the first hand. As the participant states of the federation tended to forbid direct taxes to the Reich (Prussia did so) it was necessary to find other means for the expense that was not covered by the taxes that were settled by law. To increase fees for certain services was a possibility that demanded the cooperation of the representation. Thus, the power position of the parliament as such increased and also, at times, the influence of the parties of the middle, the Zentrum and the national liberals, with whom the Chancellor in the first hand tried to get an understanding. The conservatives were more or less forced to follow the government, and the socialists were few and regarded as impossible to make a deal with. (The latter changed after 1907.)[32]

The formal system of government in Germany that has been outlined here had become influenced in important ways by both parliamentarian notions and democratic ideals. This does not mean, however, that the Emperor or the Chancellor had succumbed to such novelties. The Reichstag had a limited sphere of influence, mainly confined to legislation and some budget matters, but it had no saying in questions of government, the executive. Indirectly its attitude to the Chancellor was important and therefore the choice of this head of administration and internal politics was dependent on the supposed support of the candidate in the Reichstag. In many ways, however, the system was maintaining traditions of the strong central power. The participation of ‘the people’ directly or through its representatives was kept to a limited sphere and to a minimum. The fiction that the emperor was the sole formal decision-maker was upheld and cultivated and obviously liked by the Emperor himself. It was a fiction, but it was not altogether a fiction, for he had been able to keep vast and important areas of politics for himself, foreign policy and military command, which meant that he ruled over war and peace. The generals were directly reporting to the Emperor, who in fact acted as a minister of war and defence at the same time.

The informal structure, on the other hand, was marked by great differences within society. On one hand there were Junker elements who claimed to continue a noble tradition and who were agrarian big estate owners with their own party in the parliament, the Union of Estate Owners (Bund der Landwirte). It is worth noting that this deeply conservative part of society had accepted to form an organisation, which in fact became a party to promote its interests. Stalwart conservatism thus adapted to the conditions of an organised capitalism in society. Catholic moderate conservatism also adapted to the conditions for political struggle in Germany of the turn of the century and had formed a party in parliament, Zentrum or the Centre. Bourgeois liberals had a great party tradition from the days of 1848 and the national liberal party was very well established. Thus, social democrats were by no means outstanding in the German society with their party organisation and the efforts to act collectively in politics. Even though individual acceptance of the notion of parties as spokesmen for different groups and ideas was by no means general, it was very important that there were organisations for quite different goals and interests that were active in German politics. The range of options for voters was great. Society at large had to adjust to party activities and to accept their existence and this became relatively easy when everybody could find a party not quite alien to his (or her) ideas. Women’s voices were, however, rarely heard in politics before 1907.

The main political cleavage was between the participant states of the federation and the Reich. Contrary to many other countries in Europe of the period the questions of local self-government played only a secondary role compared to this major issue. For all states of the Reich except Prussia it was a first issue to assert its interests against Prussia and sometimes also against the Reich, and other matters were overshadowed.

Rather than local politics local associations were a first-hand interest of German citizens. Since the middle of the nineteenth century Germany had become a very tightly organised society. Associations of different sorts flourished. Most important were labour organisations and trade unions. Their formal structure was important for their members, who felt that they had a saying in the matters of the local association and that they were taken seriously, which was not the case everywhere in society. The formalities of these organisations also gave a firm experience of democratic procedures and the rule of a majority voice instead of an authority. The same model of organisation was used in many other associations, e.g. the temperance movement that grew into importance from the middle of the nineteenth century. [33]

Not only the ‘lower layers’ of society organised. The last decades of the nineteenth century saw a thorough organisation of German society. Employers and branches of industry were soon to organise and important top organisations such as the Central Federation of German Industrialists (CentralVerband deutscher Industrielle, CVDI) made the society organised in all manners by the turn of the century. The organisational grip was strong and different economic interests from ordinary workers to big capitalists and traditional estate nobles were well represented in the network of organisations. It is striking that society in this manner was much more thoroughly organised than the state.