Couldn’t spend money without a budget, could increase the military without a budget, couldn’t arrest political opponents, couldn’t censor newspapers, couldn’t realistically - and never did - change the constitution. Barely managed to alter the balance between federation and states in 50 years.
I know I'm arguing against Germany's very dearly held national self-image ;-) but my point is that when cabinet, military forces & the bureaucracy are not answerable to a parliament, it is not a true Rechtsstaat -- it is rule BY law in which the executive voluntarily binds himself to law and
Ha, but you are arguing *for* Germany’s very dearly held national self-image… you are making a Sonderweg argument that would get a lot of applause in many a retirement home for German social scientists
Much better comparison: Parliament and the Assemblée Nationale were fully sovereign during the war in 1914-18. Can’t say the same for the Reichstag during the war
How on earth is it a Sonderweg argument? I say explicitly that Germany evolved toward an open political equilibrium by 1900. That’s in the counter-Sonderweg tradition!
Point taken - this from earlier is your Sonderweg argument: https://bsky.app/profile/pseudoerasmus.bsky.social/post/3le3kjt5u5k2b. I would say the shift away from autocratic rule started in 1848 and developments post-1871 all went in that direction, bumps on the road here and there.
and his only constraint is his fear that imposing his will too arbitrarily would invite a violent reaction. The fiscal powers of the Reichstag were limited at first, because the German state had revenues outside the control of the Reichstag but governments had to get new revenue eventually
....because German military budgets were getting so large (e.g., naval expansion). Bismarck is known to have entertained rule by decree many times, and I suspect this was possible before 1890 but probably not after 1890
so I would put it this way: unified Germany in 1871 could have gone one of two ways: a more absolutist path, or a more parliamentary path. But industrialisation itself created social groups which would have resisted arbitrary rule, so probably the absolutist path was definitely closed by 1900.
in this interpretation, imperial Germany slowly evolved into a political equilibrium where the state no longer had the power to govern extraconstitutionally even if it wanted to, except in times of extreme emergency.
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