Kinship Networks, Local Government, and Elections in a Town in Southwest Germany, 1800-1850

Abstract

This article is based on the thesis that kinship structures were an important element of communal politics and were thus inscribed into the political system of even early constitutionalism. The investigation presented covers an important change in the political culture from the Ancien Régime to the modern constitutional state in southwest Germany, and it raises the question of whether election processes affected traditional structures of representation based on kinship relationships and the ascription of political competence to an elite of notables. The analysis of kinship networks within the city council and city deputation, however, comes to the opposite conclusion—that kinship networks survive even in a system where each year people were newly elected. The analysis of voters’ alignments along kinship lines also demonstrates the power and persistence of kinship structures in the early nineteenth century and reflects the differences between kinship mobilization within agriculturally bound and urban artisan groups.