Pandemics and Political Development: The Electoral Legacy of the Black Death in Germany

24 November 2020, Version 6
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed at the time of posting.

Abstract

Do pandemics have lasting consequences for political behavior? We examine the consequences of the most deadly pandemic in recorded history: the Black Death (1347-1351). Our claim is that pandemics can influence politics in the long run if they impose sufficient loss of life so as to augment the price of labor relative to other factors of production. When this occurs, labor repressive regimes become untenable, which ultimately leads to the development of proto-democratic institutions and associated political cultures that shape modalities of political engagement for generations. We test our theory by tracing out the Black Death’s consequences in German-speaking Central Europe. We find that areas hit hardest by the pandemic were more likely to:(1) adopt inclusive political institutions and equitable land ownership patterns;(2) exhibit electoral behavior indicating independence from landed elite influence during the transition to mass politics; and (3) have significantly lower vote shares for Hitler's National Socialist Party.

Keywords

Black Death
Plague
Germany
Imperial Germany
German Empire
Serfdom
Labor Coercion
Proto-Democracy
Democracy
Inclusive Political Institutions
Landed Elites
Democratization
Pandemics
19th Century
Elections
Legacies
20th Century
Land Inequality
Nazi Party
NSDAP
Weimar Republic

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