Elite Reform and Mass Resistance: Female Suffrage and Political Preferences in Germany, 1893-1933

Who drives social change—the people or activist elites? While progressive reforms are often championed by elites, their preferences may diverge from those of the broader group they aim to represent, producing unintended political consequences. We study this dynamic in the context of female suffrage in Germany, a reform driven by activist elites but ultimately lacking support from the broader female electorate. Using newly digitized voting data from Munich, linked to individual socioeconomic records, we identify the political preferences of elite and non-elite women. We exploit variation in elite composition based on pre-franchise socioeconomic characteristics, as well as variation in World War I widowhood, which increased the observability of non-elite women in household records. Precincts with more elite women supported the social-liberal party that had long advocated women’s rights, while those with greater non-elite female presence shifted toward nationalist parties promoting traditional gender norms. This divergence persists across multiple elections and is not explained by warrelated shocks or male voting behavior. Our findings suggest that formal inclusion alone may be insufficient to shift entrenched social and political hierarchies.