A short summary and analysis, for a seminar class, of this peer reviewed research article: Satyanath, Shanker and Voigtlaender, Nico and Voth, Hans-Joachim, "Bowling for Fascism: Social Capital and the Rise of the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany 1919-33" (August 2013). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP9595. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2309239

1. Social Capital and the Rise of the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany, 1919-33
Satyanath et al. 2013
Aalto University, T-76.5655, Ronja Addams-Moring 23 September 2014

2. Social capital (SC), dense network of civic associations: choirs, sports clubs, breeders…
Traditionally: SC promotes social good - trust, social cohesion, political participation, GDP per capita, developed financial markets...
◦de Toqueville (1835): “may be perverted”
Research lately: SC has a darker side, too
◦Putnam (2000) “bridging” vs. “bonding” associations
◦Durlauf & Fafchamps (2004) clubs -> polarization, in-groups vs. out-groups ; Field (2003) in-group co-operation -> criminality (alike “bonding” above)
◦Acemoglu et al. (2013) entrenching ruling elites
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3. No research questions defined
They examine: “the role of social capital in the downfall of democracy“
What is missing from research: “clear-cut evidence that a functioning democracy itself can be undermined as a result of having a rich network of clubs and associations”
They argue: “associations facilitated recruitment for anti-system parties, by helping to spread pro-Nazi messages”
Focus/dependent variable: entry rates (new members) to the National Socialist (NS) party
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4. Riley (2005) the rise of fascism in Italy and Spain: denser networks –> more fascist cells
Welldorfer (2003) the rise of fascism in Italian elections: civic society gave some protection, but only in certain elections
Why did the Nazis rise in Germany?
◦Shirer (1960) marginal loners felt they belonged
◦Winkler (1987) a form of class conflict
◦Group membership focus: Linz (1976) group membership, Mommsen (1978) conquest of bourgeois infrastructure, Koshar (1986) NS members active in local groups, Anheier (2003) well-connected individuals attracted new members
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5. NS members: quantitative studies1970s ->
◦computerized parts of NS membership master file (survived by pure accident, captured by US troops)
Civic associations: this article
◦hand-collected data, source: public archive/library
◦city or town directories “useful contacts” listings
◦cross-section of 112 towns and cities
◦# of associations (# of members not available)
Representative?
◦good geographic spread, not perfect (“hole” in NE)
◦more urban than German average back then
◦Catholics = south overrepresented (data survival)
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6. Association density strongly and significantly predicts higher entry rates into the NS
Early (1924-28) and late (1929-33) NS entry can be explained by civic network density
Two historical controls for omitted variable bias -> results still “broadly plausible”
Both “bridging” and “bonding” associations contributed roughly equally
Robustness: downweighing outliers does not affect results
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7. Good reason to believe that the link is causal
Stark contrast to Stern (1972): had blamed Germany’s path to dictatorship on a “civic non-age” of low social capital
SC can indeed have a “dark side”, it can risk the survival of democracy if it facilitates growth of an extremist movement
Future research needed: Under what set of specific conditions do the widely documented benefits of SC outweigh the rare – but catastrophic – costs?
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8. Review: Chris Colvin "Singing for Hitler – Choirs, Clubs and the Third Reich" http://nephist.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/singing-for-hitler-choirs-clubs-and-the- third-reich/
◦generally positive – recommended reading
◦comparing a town in the Nazi stronghold Bavaria to a town in the north of Germany "disingenuous“
Micke, Marjo, Satu + Ronja: why no analysis of the specific role of sports clubs?!
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9. Very interesting & well written
A bit ghoulish to read
Why not explicit research questions?
Some small mistakes, a couple a bit weird
A good lesson (for me personally) in what more to learn about statistics
Definitely new, valuable contribution
I would like to see a journal article, too – and why not also a book
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10. Questions?
My contact info
◦http://www.iki.fi/~ronja/
◦http://www.proz.com/profile/853646
◦https://www.facebook.com/ronja.addamsmoring
◦https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RonjaAddamsMoring
◦http://www.linkedin.com/in/addamsmoring
◦ronja.addams.moring [AT] gmail [DOT] com
◦ronja [AT] iki [DOT] fi
◦skype: ronja-am
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11. This work is (= these slides are) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The license terms are available here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- sa/4.0/
Attribution info: Ronja Addams-Moring: "Analysis of article: Bowling for Fascism" - presentation 23 September 2014 at Aalto University, Espoo, Finland, EU.
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