The Cult of Monarchy, Political Loyalty and the Workers' Movement in Imperial Germany

Every political system depends for its stability on the society's acknowledgement of its authority. There must be a certain degree of identification between those who hold political power and those they rule. For this consensus to work there has to be not only a psychological disposition on the part of the majority to accept the 'rulers legitimacy, but also shared values and agreed norms of behaviour which validate the authority of government. The political process insofar as it is not naked terror is never only a one way flow but an inter-action between rulers and ruled. That psychological disposition to accept authority is brought into being via the institutions of a given political system, through which its attitudes are transmitted. Generally this process is one of 'modellearning' within the framework of family, school, youth organizations, etc. which prepare the way for later, more specialized training in communication. One way in which this communication can be analysed is as a system of signs which, by simplifying reality, facilitate adjustment to the environment. 'Politics as ritual' crystallizes around concentrated symbols which, by presenting complex subject-matter simultaneously and in integral form makes it easy for the public to assimilate. The ritual thereby assists mental integration through conformity and in relieving anxieties via the security of group identity. This paper analyses the workings of 'politics as ritual', by examining a particular society as a representative example. Germany's system of government in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was constitutional monarchy. A compromise

Aesthetics · Compromise · Democracy · Identity (music · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Monarchy · Political science · Political system · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Central European national history · European Political History Analysis · History of Emotions Research · Law · Philosophy

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