This proves the political instability of Germany in this period as they were the largest party in the Reichstag but still refused to cooperate. This need for the parties to agree cause germanys politics to become unstable yet again because they were unable to agree of unemployment benefits and foreign policy. This led the voter moving to more extremist parties like the KPD who had 10.6% of the vote in 1923. The election of president Hindenburg did not have a positive effect as he was very anti socialists, resulting in him excluding the SPD from the coalition despite their majority and including the DNVP to limit the coverage of the political spectrum in the hope his policies would pass quicker. In terms of economic development, the Dawes and the Young plan definitely helped develop and rebuild Germany’s economy, however there are other factors which counteracted them, making them less effective.
Therefore Liberals wanted constitutional reform and more power to be given to the Reichstag. Whereas socialists demanded social reform and power to the workers and trade unions. However conservatives, such as Bismarck wanted to conserve to the Junkers – the elite class. To do this he proposed the Anti-Socialist Law in 1879 and also passed the Tariff Law, which appeased the liberals. The years leading up to the war the German people were dreading it, there were protests in Berlin in July 1914.
His reform included different aspect; such as political, social and economic. He also appointed Peter Stolypin as the prime minister to stabilize the country. Nicholas II had tried his best to regain people’s support and stop the revolution tide through the reforms however resentment of his wife and her involvement with the mystical Rasputin was widespread and did little to regain the peoples trust. Also the state of the country during World War One left a lot to be desired and created a lot of dissatisfaction amongst the Russian people. The personality of Nicholas II contributed to his downfall in 1917.
They are dependent on a coalition government because so far they have never had a majority in Parliament. Without the Conservatives choosing to form a coalition with them in order to create a majority, the Liberal Democrats would never have been able to come into power. Furthermore they’re becoming increasing unpopular in power due to breaking promises and being accused of ‘turning Tory’. This suggests that they have no political strength by themselves and that many potential voters will turn to alternatives, such as the Labour party, who could ultimately gain popularity due to the failures of the Liberal Democrats; therefore the UK is still a two party system favouring the Conservatives and Labour party. However on the other hand it is argued that the UK could not possibly be a two party system because the Conservatives wouldn’t have been able to come into power without the Liberal Democrats.
He required that his subjects “loan him the equivalent of five subsidies” and although it was “opposed by significant numbers in the localities,” the taxation still occurred as the government had “employed all its powers to eliminate resistance”. Moreover, the Forced Loan only happened as a result of Charles dismissing the 1626 Parliament, forfeiting his opportunity of obtaining further grants for his wartime expenditure. Parliament had already been antagonised by Charles’ decision to dismiss them and now that Charles was forcing taxation on others in order to fund his wartime expenditure, due to disastrous foreign policy which Parliament largely disagreed with, it is clear that the Forced Loan had worsened relations greatly. In addition to this, the financing of foreign policy also affected the relationship between Crown and Parliament. As stated previously, the Forced Loan existed to fund England’s wars considering that Parliament was reluctant to grant Charles further subsidies.
Possibly the greatest vulnerability was 'the weakness within' - the constitution gave the President, the states and the military too much control, whilst proportional voting meant that the Reichstag was separated and weak. There was no single party in complete control and parties had to join together to form a government. However, each party had different goals which caused in-fighting and instability making it difficult for the Reichstag, with its many changes in power, to govern effectively. This was reflected in 376 political assassinations up to 1923. From the start there was economic instability because of the cost of World War One and there was widespread disillusion within the German people.
‘To what extent do you agree that the nationalist movement was the greatest threat facing the liberal government by 1914?’ By 1914, there were a number of threats to the liberal government. Examples of these are from the PSI (the socialist party), nationalists and the Catholic Church. The reasons why these groups were a threat to the liberal government was in part because of the weaknesses of the liberal government itself, and the poor state of the economy under the liberals. The economy especially led to a lack of Italian identity, with very high levels of emigration (mainly to the USA). These factors led to a fragile liberal government, with the main threat in my opinion being posed not by the nationalists but the socialists.
The most important plan made was the Beveridge Report in 1942. This report highlighted the main causes of poverty in Britain as, WANT (poverty), DISEASE (bad health), SQUALOR (bad housing), IGNORANCE (poor education), and IDLENESS (unemployment). These causes were called ‘the Five Giants.’ In 1951, Labour was criticized for not keeping its promises, and many of their previous voters turned conservative. This caused Labour to lose the 1951 election, as they had focused more on peace throughout the country after the war, than building
Also with the France, Britain and USA not agreeing on the terms of the treaty made it even harder for it to end. Germany’s anger from the treaty came from a few of conditions which one wasn’t entirely true. The first of these conditions were that they were to blame for the war, this condition so bad that no man in Germany would sign it not even a soldier under direct orders. Also the amount of money that Germany had to pay back was very unrealistic ($6600 million) and would cripple their country for years to come. There were other factors that Germany thought that were very unfair such as their tiny army and the amount of land that was taken from them.
The new state did not satisfy the lower classes in Italy, it accommodated for societies elite, but repressed the masses. This made it difficult for any party to get votes because there were two sectors of society who wanted totally different things, The north/south divide meant that no party could satisfy everybody in Italy and win over the majority of the nation creating a gateway for the emergence of Fascism. Furthermore, the vast majority of the Italian population were Roman Catholics and followed the Pope. The papacy was opposed to the Liberal state which had eroded the Papal States until the Vatican City was all that was left. In 1874, Pope Pius IX openly encouraged Italian Catholics not to vote in the election of that year.