Voting Systems and the End of the Weimar Republic

As an avid student of history, one of my favorite topics to investigate has been the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic: the democratic regime which historically sits between Imperial Germany and the Nazi regime. An easy misconception is the notion that Hitler was popularly elected or that he forcibly seized power in the country - neither of which are true. Through using a public choice approach, it is possible to determine that Hitler wasn't inevitable, at least in regard to the 1932 German Presidential election, even as the rules of the game allowed him to ascend to the chancellorship the same year. 

Looking over the results of the 1932 German Presidential Election, it is apparent that the Weimar Republic used a majority-rule rather than plurality-rule electoral system to choose the President, as Hindenburg won only after the run-off election because it was then that he attained over 50% of the vote. Furthermore, the election results highlights the increasing polarization in the Weimar Republic. Hindenburg, despite being the incumbent president and a staunch conservative, was not the candidate from the conservative party during the election - it was actually Duesterberg from the DNVP. The other candidates were Thalmann of the Communist Party and Hitler of the Nazi Party. This reveals that, under the median voter theorem, the median voter candidates sought to appeal to was starting to tend towards the extremes, reflective of the political environment in Weimar Germany at the time. This polarization is especially apparent given the lack of candidate presented by the Social Democrats (SPD), who were traditionally the moderate liberal party in Weimar Germany. Furthermore, it is clear that Hindenburg was the Condorcet winner of the 1932 German Presidential Election. This is because if one were to place the various candidates of this election along the political spectrum, they would, from far-left to far-right, be Thalmann (Communist Party), Hindenburg (incumbent/Independent), Duesterberg (Conservatives), and Hitler (Nazi). Given this setup, and the fact that we have previously deduced that the median voter leaned strongly to the right, Hindenburg would defeat each of Thalmann, Duesterberg, and Hitler in pairwise elections. Against Thalmann, Hindenburg would absorb Duesterberg and Hitler's vote shares and reach 86.8% of the vote; against Duesterberg, Hindenberg would absorb Thalmann's vote share and reach 62.8% of the vote; against Hitler, Hindenburg would absorb Thalmann's vote share and some of Duesterberg's, which is what happened in reality during the runoff election, and thus win with roughly 65% of the vote. As such, the 1932 German Presidential Election avoided the Condorcet Paradox and managed to produce the Condorcet winner.

Despite the presidential election producing a Condorcet winner in the form of Hindenburg, Hitler still managed to take power through the chancellorship less than a year later, because of the manner in which the parliamentary system of the Weimar Republic was constructed. While it would be equally fascinating to investigate the 1932 Federal Election through the application of the median voter theorem and Downs' understanding of modality in multiparty systems, such an investigation is probably best suited to a future blog post, where it can be appropriately dealt with.