WI Wimar Germany had a first past the post system

for elections. Wouldn't that keep the Nazis out of power?

Conceivably, but it's far from guaranteed. After all, the FPTP system in Britain didn't stop the Labour Party from displacing the Liberals as the alternative government, so there's no obvious reason why the NSDAP couldn't similarly displace the traditional right-wing parties. If it does, then FPTP simply makes it easier to gain the absolute majority which eluded it under PR.

What Germany needed was some equivalent of the British Conservative Party, to keep its political right on a reasonably civilised course. It's not obvious that changing the electoral system will necessarily bring this about.
 
Interesting question!

What Germany needed was some equivalent of the British Conservative Party, to keep its political right on a reasonably civilised course. It's not obvious that changing the electoral system will necessarily bring this about.

Very true.

The only chance to get such a conservative party is some proto-CDU, that is a party which joins the catholic Zentrum - or at least the conservative parts of it - plus what i'd dub the "East-Elbians". IOTL, such a party emerged only as the East-Elbians lost their posts and economic foundation.

As the first government would likely be SPD, maybe they do something against the old Prussian elites? Not sure however how to achieve this without facing Freikorps...
 
I remember a time when Faeelin asked our hive for advice on that question.

My one hundred Ugandan shillings:
If FPTP would have worked as it's supposed to be, you'd rapidly see the country divided into regions of SPD and Zentrum supremacy on the one hand, and those of DNVP and related parties' supremacy on the other.

The average DDP (maybe hailing to the SPD or forging alliances with them) and DVP (maybe hailing towards DNVP) would have a hard time finding a political home because even both combined would rarely make a strong enough party to fetch seats. Things could or could not get ugly at that point.
 
for elections. Wouldn't that keep the Nazis out of power?

It depends on the circumstances. If you have it from the start the advantage of FPTP is that it gives large minorities more power. Hence you may get more stable government in the 20's and early 30's because you don't need majority support in the country to get a majority in the parliament.

If that doesn't happen and the vote splits as OTL without butterflies then Hitler probably gets to power about 8 months earlier as he will have proportionally more seats in the July 32 election when the Nazis got ~37.5% of the vote. This means no need for all the manouvering that preceeded the Nazis coming to power as they have much less need for coalition partners. Even quite possible with that proportion of the vote to get an absolute majority.

Steve
 
WI Wimar Germany had a first past the post system
for elections. Wouldn't that keep the Nazis out of power?
Pretty likely, IMHO. The nazis still would've won some seats, but not enough be a big dog as OTL. At least as important, Weimar governing coalitions would've been far easier to construct, meaning they wouldn't've been scraping the bottom of the barrel for Chancellor candidates so hard they had to turn to Hitler.

Labour got its place in the sun by moderating - it's hardly the same thing.
 
Duverger's Law cuts both ways. It makes it harder for a third party to gain political prominence (Labour in the UK and partially the NDP in Canada are the only ones, to my knowledge, that have ever cleared the initial hurdle). But once they do, as Duverger himself noted, they have the potential to consolidate their power quite quickly. That was what happened with Labour in the UK; after the first Labour election victory, the Liberals were pretty much a non-entity.
 
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