The political structure established by Bismarck in 1867 remained with scant change until the empire’s demise in 1918. Leo, Graf (count) von Caprivi, Bismarck’s successor, was a political neophyte, having spent his entire career in the military. Given the disjuncture between the Prussian and German political systems (see above Domestic concerns), Caprivi, surprisingly, sought to work with the parties of the center and left, Bismarck’s Reichsfeinde. With their support, he reduced the grain tariffs and negotiated long-term trade treaties with Russia, the Dual Monarchy, and Romania. Food prices fell as a result, and industry flourished. National wealth rose rapidly, as did the standard of living of the industrial labor force. The Junker elite were outraged at Caprivi’s willingness to sacrifice their interests on behalf of industry and labor. Utilizing their political power in Prussia and their access to the emperor, they were able to force his resignation in 1894, making his chancellorship the shortest before the war. After his resignation, the former general wrote to a friend:

In regard to the “Junker agrarians” I see only evil, and it appears to me that a revolution by the agrarians is not impossible and for the moment more dangerous than a Social Democratic revolution.

Succeeding chancellors learned from Caprivi’s fall that opposition to the landed elite was fraught with peril. Bernhard, Fürst (prince) von Bülow, chancellor from 1900 to 1909, abandoned Caprivi’s trade policy and resurrected the alliance of the agrarian and industrial elites.

As Germany entered the 20th century, its economy was the most dynamic in Europe, but its authoritarian political system was marked by paralysis. With each election, the increasingly urban electorate returned Social Democrats in growing numbers. By 1890 the Social Democrats (who had adopted a Marxist program of revolution at their Erfurt congress in 1891) received more votes than any other party, although four other parties won more seats. By 1912 they had more voters supporting them than the next two largest parties combined. Both the Centre and Social Democrats were able to create parties with a mass base in German society. The Conservatives, National Liberals, and Progressives were more traditional parties, led by notables who were ill at ease in the world of populist politics. All three declined relatively, especially the Conservatives, who, despite flirting with anti-Semitism after 1893 by becoming a Christian party, fell to less than 15 percent of the vote by 1912. Many contemporary observers thought that a major crisis was impending between the recalcitrant elites and the increasing number of Germans who desired political emancipation similar to that of Britain and France.

While the Liberals and Conservatives declined in the Reichstag, new single-issue extraparliamentary interest groups gained adherents. For the most part organizations such as the Pan-German League, the Navy League, the Farmers League, and the Colonial League were authoritarian in their politics and aggressively expansionist in foreign policy. Their constituencies were overwhelmingly middle-class and educated (except for the Farmers League), and they sought to influence the decision-making process both directly, by impressing the ministers with their strength, and indirectly, by supporting parties that adhered to their goals. Given the wealth and high status of their membership (professors were highly visible as leaders), they were unusually effective in publicizing their goals. One of the striking characteristics of the empire was the support it received from the educated strata of the population, despite (or perhaps because of) its elitist constitution.

In the last election during the empire (1912), the Social Democrats scored a great victory, capturing 34.8 percent of the vote and 110 seats. On the local level they had begun to cooperate with the Progressives and occasionally with the Centre Party. Southern states such as Württemberg were moving toward full parliamentary government, and Alsace-Lorraine was given a surprising degree of self-government. Thus, there were some indications that the empire was evolving into a representative democracy. On the other hand, the states of Saxony and Hamburg adopted even more restrictive franchises than Prussia in the years before World War I. Above all, Prussia and its Junker, military, and bureaucratic elites, supported by much of the professoriat, stood firm in opposition to any substantial democratization of the Prussian electoral system, which was a key to political reform in the Reich. It is not at all clear, therefore, how German politics might have evolved if war had not come in 1914. Some historians have viewed the outbreak of war in that year as an attempt by these elites to shore up their sagging position with a successful war and annexations, as Bismarck had done in the 1860s when the authoritarian Prussian state was besieged by a liberal opposition.