Welfare Reform and Repression in an Autocracy: Bismarck and the Socialists

Felix Kersting
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Felix Kersting: HU Berlin

No 227, Working Papers from European Historical Economics Society (EHES)

Abstract: Can autocratic governments gain support by implementing a welfare reform and a repressive law? This paper studies a famous case – Bismarck’s policies of social insurance and the antisocialist law in late 19th century Germany. The socialist party, I find, increases its vote share in constituencies more affected by Bismarck’s policies. For identification, I exploit local and industry-specific variation in treatment intensity due to ex-ante existing local healthcare and detailed lists on forbidden socialist organizations. This variation allows me to use a flexible difference-in-differences as well as a shift-share approach. As mechanisms, I highlight that the socialist party evaded the repression by reallocating their activity and gained from the social insurance by claiming the credits for the welfare reform and providing a local cooperative alternative.

Keywords: welfare reform; repression; social democracy; opposition; voting; autocracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 N44 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hes:wpaper:0227

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