Wilhelmine Germany and Edwardian England

Chapter 5 compares Wilhelmine Germany with Edwardian England and arrives at an unconventional conclusion about their relative stability. There is a scholarly tradition of viewing the Second Reich, particularly after the fall of Bismarck and the political ascension of King Wilhelm II, as so ridden with internal contradictions that it was in near-permanent crisis. More recently, scholars have argued that Germany was in fact democratizing, suggesting again that this major historical case of competitive authoritarianism was volatile. I find instead that the balance of evidence indicates that Imperial Germany is a good case of institutionalized competitive authoritarianism, and that it was Edwardian England rather than Wilhelmine Germany where the most serious threat of regime change existed. I contest two widely held misconceptions: (1) that the UK had transitioned to democracy significantly before the outbreak of WWI and (2) that the landed elite acquiesced in this transition. I argue instead that the UK was not only a prototypical competitive oligarchy before WWI but also that it was in a constitutional crisis and close to civil war.