ABSTRACT
Ralf Dahrendorf's analytical framework provides a useful point of departure for an analysis of the political implications of German social structure. In this chapter, the author focuses on a rigid social structure filled with elements of ascription that impede individual mobility and an inadequate institutionalization of social conflicts. He analyzes what cleavages have characterized German society at various stages and how these cleavages were transformed into interest organizations and political parties. The author provides a very short and sketchy account of the strains characterizing German society before the National Socialists came to power. This will provide a comparative yardstick by which the contemporary features of German society in the Federal Republic can be assessed. The author highlights how fundamentally the social structure of the Federal Republic deviates from that in the Weimar Republic. After this comparison between past and present, he discusses some of the changes in West German society and offers some speculations about likely future developments.
