William S. Allen's The Nazi Seizure of Power provides a micro-level study of the breakdown of democracy in Germany. Outline what you see as the most important factors explaining the breakdown of democracy in Weimar Germany, based on Allen's study. Both Germany and Japan have enjoyed remarkable political stability since the Second World War and both are regarded as democracies. Thus, many observers worried that neither Japan nor Germany offered fertile soil for the growth of democracy. Write an essay that compares the two nations' experiences with democracy, highlighting the factors that explain democracy's stability in those two countries.
Japan now has an electoral system very similar to that of Germany.
Describe the main features of the German electoral system, distinguishing it from our own electoral system and from the proportional representation list systems used in countries like Israel and the Netherlands. Germany, like its European neighbors and like Japan, employs a parliamentary form of government. Germany and Japan employ a parliamentary form of democracy. Outline the differences in the specific institutions of parliamentary government in place in the two nations.