Bowling for fascism:social capital and the rise of the nazi party in weimar germany, 1919-33

[Magda Hassan]

Social capital has a very dark side. Here's some neat evidence.

Abstract: Social capital a dense network of associations facilitating cooperation within a community typically leads to positive political and economic
outcomes, as demonstrated by a large literature following Putnam. A growing
literature emphasizes the potentially "dark side" of social capital. This paper
examines the role of social capital in the downfall of democracy in interwar
Germany by analyzing Nazi party entry rates in a cross-section of towns and
cities. Before the Nazi Party's triumphs at the ballot box, it built an extensive
organizational structure, becoming a mass movement with nearly a million
members by early 1933. We show that dense networks of civic associations such
as bowling clubs, animal breeder associations, or choirs facilitated the rise of the
Nazi Party. The effects are large: Towns with one standard deviation higher
association density saw at least one-third faster growth in the strength of the
Nazi Party. IV results based on 19th century measures of social capital reinforce
our conclusions. In addition, all types of associations veteran associations and
non-military clubs, "bridging" and "bonding" associations positively predict
NS party entry. These results suggest that social capital in Weimar Germany
aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany's first

democracy.

http://www.crei.cat/people/voth/Voth_bow...ascism.pdf