How to: No Christian democracy

I'm in the planning stages of what will probably be my first substantial TL (about time, really), and a significant part of it involves late 19th century politics. I thereby put it in this category, although it will probably move on to the 1900s (though not without significant butterflies). As part of my TL, I want conservatism, socialism, national socialism and liberalism to be the dominant political movements in continental Europe in the last decade of the 19th century, though not particularly in that order

Yes, national socialism is on that list, but there's a pretty good reason why it exists at that point in time; it won't be very widespread and more leftleaning than OTLs, at least for that period in time. The 'conservatism' is mostly reactionary behaviour towards liberalism and socialism, and is more widely appealing ad more dmocratic than OTL's.

Now, there's the problem of Christian democracy. While in a way also formed as a reaction to socialism, it is also democratic, and opposed to liberalism once the protestants too had their go at it. Not too mention that it was all initiated by Rerum Novarum.

I myself don't know quite as much as I should know about it. I was thinking of trying to merge it with the remnants of 'conservative' thought, that in my TL still lingers on, though it has to reform from it's absolutist tendencies. Would that work or evne be possible? Would the Pope be satisfied by that? And could the Protestants and Catholicss be in the same party at that point in time, when the people themselves were getting more and more involved wth politics across the continent?

I might not have told you enough about my plans for a TL. I'm rather reluctant, as I don't want to settle down things permanently, and I haven't thought enough about the rest of the world (though I guess the UK and Japan will also be involved). More will be revealed if necessary.

Anyway, thanks for reading this post, I'd greatly appreciate any comments.
 
Interesting question. I don't know anything, but I always thought it a bit odd that you had denominational parties in modern times. I guess one needs to look to where they came from and see how they developed to see why those countries with them didnt stick with ideologically based parties...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Interesting question. I don't know anything, but I always thought it a bit odd that you had denominational parties in modern times. I guess one needs to look to where they came from and see how they developed to see why those countries with them didnt stick with ideologically based parties...
Yes, it's always good to start out by asking those questions.
From what I've gathered, Catholic christian democracy started out as a response (initated by the Church itself) against socialism and it's godlessness, while Protestant christian democrayc started out as a response to the catholics organising themselves, as well as anti-liberalism. It's all very reactionary, as fits the mindset of the time (which is why I like that period).

The problem is that they each have groups they don't want to work with. The Catholics don't like the socialists, while the protestants don't like the liberals, and surely both don't like eachother. Political Protestants could mix with the Conservatives (as it partially did in OTL), but that still leaves political Catholicism to mess up the way I hope conflicts to play out.
 
The Catholic Church in the 19th century was politically cornered by the progressive (liberal and socialist) movements one one side and the restaurative Protestant monarchs on the other side.
Therefore political Catholicism landed in a spot unoccupied by other groups:
Conservative in civil rights topics, but liberal in social and economic affairs.

As the satirical journal "Simplicissimus" rewrites Gulliver's travels:
"And then he came into a land where a giant calle 'Zentrum' lived. He was so big that he could stand with one leg among socialists, while with the other one finding himself amidst government circles ..."


... but I always thought it a bit odd that you had denominational parties in modern times.

Do you know any significant denominational parties in Europe - rather than Christian in general?
Btw I don't really get what's so odd about the supporters of one party actually having something in common ...
 
I might not have told you enough about my plans for a TL. I'm rather reluctant, as I don't want to settle down things permanently, and I haven't thought enough about the rest of the world (though I guess the UK and Japan will also be involved). More will be revealed if necessary.

A Christian Democratic party isn't viable in Japan given the historically low number of Catholics and Protestants in that society. There's no real Christian ethos in Japan to warrant a Christian take on politics.

Religious "parties" in the US, such as the Know-Nothings, were almost purely nativist Protestant responses to Catholic immigration in the 19th century. I'd suspect that any Christian Democratic party in 19th/early 20th century USA would be a deeply Protestant, nativist, probably prohibitionist, and maybe isolationist party. This might be a good TL tangent.

Another interesting tangent might be the evolution of European Christian Democratic parties away from strong denominational identification towards secular center-right policies. I wonder if this postwar development could be accelerated in ATL. I don't consider the German CDU/CSU a Catholic party anymore. Perhaps it is not even a Christian one anymore. Angela Merkel has taken a very sharp secular route that appears to sweep away any vestiges of religious identification.
 
Religious "parties" in the US, such as the Know-Nothings, were almost purely nativist Protestant responses to Catholic immigration in the 19th century. I'd suspect that any Christian Democratic party in 19th/early 20th century USA would be a deeply Protestant, nativist, probably prohibitionist, and maybe isolationist party. This might be a good TL tangent.

Another interesting tangent might be the evolution of European Christian Democratic parties away from strong denominational identification towards secular center-right policies.
Thanks, that helps me a lot.
 
A strong motivation for the forming of the Catholic political movements in the 19th century was also Catholics seeking something keeping them grounded in turbulent political times.
In a slow but profound democratization as in England - with the French revolution blanketed down early and without OTL's strong restauration - these movements would most probably not have popped up.
 
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