• the conflict between the welfare state and liberal voluntary philanthropy,

• the use of charity and welfare as instruments of social control and entrepreneurial representation (image cultivation, self-projection …),

• questions of identity and acculturation of minority communities,

• interactions and issues between minorities (Jewish in particular) and society at large,

• migrations and migration crises, and how they were managed.

• the attitudes of members of the Jewish elite to social problems within their own community and society at large

  their internal debates on these issues

• the reactions to their charitable activities among the wider public, and how these reactions were assessed and dealt with among the elite

• the intra-European transfer of skills and know-how on the organisation and management of philanthropic institutions in general (Jewish and non-Jewish)

• the attitudes of the Jewish elite to the challenges posed by Jewish mass immigration, in particular during the late 19th century and the 1930s

• the minorities’ efforts at integration and differentiation, and the reactions within the major religious communities of the countries here involved

• The time-frame for this study has been set from c. 1800, when Napoleon’s reform laws instigated a sustained process of Jewish acculturation in Europe, until 1939/40, when German anti-Semitism and military aggression put a violent end to it.

• an analytical monograph, written by the lead researcher

• a book containing a collection of essays by the lead and assistant researchers, with external historians invited to participate

• articles by the lead and assistant researchers, placed in journals a conference, at a later stage in the process, in which historians and protago-nists of current philanthropy may exchange ideas (the papers possibly to be published in the above-mentioned collection)

• a database on Jewish charitable institutions and related primary sources, accessible on the internet.

It is easy to assume that a ‘natural’ relationship existed between elites and power resources – one that guided urban decision-making and determined its outcome. Of course wealth and education (as major forms of ‘capital’ and pillars of the elite) were concentrated in the hands of a small group. But was political power similarly concentrated or was it distributed more broadly along the entire spectrum of the urban population? Was it perhaps the case that economic, social and cultural elites were isolated from political decision-making and therefore not identical with the political elite? Is it possible that philanthropy, educational attainment, and support for the arts were used to exert influence without the direct control of political institutions? Did economic, social and political changes strengthen the power of established elites or did these processes generate new elites who could challenge those with inherited wealth and position? What about the power of working-class movements and their influence on municipal government and the strategic thinking of elite groups? Did these reciprocal influences significantly change the political culture? The anthology also addresses more ‘structural’ aspects, such as the role of coalition-building among various classes and elite groups and their ability to place their representatives in positions of power and influence. Establishing the character of an urban ruling elite is the central methodological challenge and requires fundamental theories of historical research. One aspect of such research is identifying the individuals that constituted an elite group, a methodology that contrasts sharply with much social history dominated by the study of ‘structures’. This is a long-standing question that animated the German ‘Lamprecht’ debate of the late nineteenth century, when historian Karl Lamprecht challenged historians to place greater emphasis on social processes. According to Lamprecht, instead of focusing on ‘great events and great men’, historians should ‘base [their research] on the long-term movements of economic conditions and social institutions’. (1) Instead of the actions of individuals, this new social history emphasised power relationships, whose investigation received priority over individuals or power elites. Viewed less as powerful actors, these elite groups represented a subordinate historical agency, subject to the influences of social relationships and social change. (2)

As profitable as this theory has proven to be for investigating general social contexts and especially for considering mass movements, these views have also thwarted the empirical research of elite groups. For this reason, theories of elite groups have remained abstract and hypothetical. French historical research at the beginning of the nineteenth century viewed history as the product of class conflict and investigated primarily the factors that determine the actions of individuals. This perspective gained currency in Germany through the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and was transformed by the application of Weberian theory to the study of major social movements. Only much later was attention given to the processes mediating economic and social relationships, political power and cultural factors, and along with this the latitude for the actions of individuals. This prepared the context for a study of elite groups based on individuals, for which historians have attempted to develop viable research methods since the 1960s. Down to the present, the results of this research remain contradictory since the very question of who belongs to an elite is contested. Under the influence of American urban sociology, a number of competing theories have emerged. One approach has attempted to identify the offices and functions relevant to social change and the corresponding individuals who held these positions. In contrast, another approach places great importance on the measurement of reputation or stature. (4) Attempts to apply these models to historical research have quickly demonstrated the limits of these one-dimensional theories.

At first blush the theoretical approach of considering formal office-holding appears to offer a simple and elegant solution to the problem. However, it is not clear how to delineate an elite in relation to its respective ‘positions’ or political offices. Especially larger cities with their sophisticated administrative structures and various informal communication networks present tremendous difficulties. Even studies of officeholders based on prosopographical methods fall short, since they exclude a large proportion of those elite groups who held political power. The ruling council of a German or British city, for example, was never the unique representative of its burghers resp. citizens or an independent executive within the republican commune. Many of the council’s objectives were defeated to some extent by other burgher committees, and the execution of decisions was always carefully controlled. The thesis has still other problems. How do we weight the importance of different positions? Attempts to establish a point system that considers the web of political committees and offices and likewise accounts for the inexact values of qualitative factors necessarily fails. Certainly efforts to quantify such disparate factors demonstrate the absurdity of this approach. The results would be determined in large part by the assignment of values to diverse factors and ultimately by the arbitrary analysis of the historian. (5)

The theoretical approach of the office-holding model is not without value for the study of elite groups, however, as long as its limitations are recognised. The approach outlined here certainly allows us to identify elements of an urban elite, particularly those present in political corporations, namely council members and the members of burgher committees. In some German studies these have been analysed and described as the politische Führungsschicht (‘group of political leaders’). (6) These and other studies have additionally identified and shed light on a second group consisting of the wirtschaftliche Oberschicht (‘economic upper class’), described as the highest tax payers. (7) For the example of New York Sven Beckert provides important fundamental research on this issue in his book The Monied Metropolis, which is augmented by additional research presented in an essay in this volume. (8)

In German commercial cities such as Frankfurt, Leipzig, Cologne, Hamburg, or Bremen these two groups were by no means identical nor can their relationship to one another be described as static. The same can be said for British cities such as Edinburgh, Lincoln, Swansea or King’s Lynn, for Norwegian towns like Trondheim, or for American and Canadian cities including New York, Chicago, Montreal and Quebec. Neither can an elite be reduced to those holding the greatest political or economic power. Indeed, the question of power becomes more dynamic as one uncovers the complex structures and role of culture within the system of a bourgeois society. It was Jürgen Habermas who emphasised the genesis of a public sphere as a constitutive element of modern civil society and as a critical institution for the dominance of the middle class. (9)
Thomas Nipperdey used Habermas’s sociological concept to develop a groundbreaking historical interpretation in which he identified four main factors for explaining the successful spread of voluntary societies in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Europe. The first of these elements was the manner in which free associations allowed their members to meet each other independent of the social restrictions of traditional old regime corporations. The new clubs also served an ideological purpose by allowing members to forge political identities and interests and establish a new spirit for a modern civil society. Many of the associations also had practical ambitions, which they pursued successfully without the support of the state or other traditional institutions. Finally, the new clubs and societies served to promote patronage of the fine arts and can be seen as agencies for the creation of ‘art’. (10)Nipperdey applied these four functions of free associations in his interpretation of the origin of modern middle class society. He further analysed bourgeois society according to its three main characteristics: as a social, a political and a cultural entity. It was Nipperdey’s view that voluntary societies served primarily a cultural function, and were responsible for establishing the cultural sphere of early middle class society. (11)
The associational movement increased tremendously within the first decades of the nineteenth century, and with this popularity helped to organise elements of the enlighted nobility and even the under classes. (12) Nipperdey concluded that ‘The association is the most important medium for the formation of civil society’. (13)
Like Habermas and Nipperdey David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley have considered the growth of the German bourgeoisie in the context of the: „development of a public sphere (Öffentlichkeit), separate from and independent of the state: a sphere of activity and discourse through the press, and through legally guaranteed rights of association and assembly. These “bourgeois freedoms” together with the rights of free speech and petition, constituted the formal attributes of equality before the law within a Rechtsstaat.“ (14)

The development Habermas, Nipperdey, Blackbourn and Eley have identified in German history has a close British counterpart, anlysed by Robert J. Morris, and to a lesser extent Peter Clark. Not only the timing of but also the major dynamics in the development of British associational culture were very similar to German conditions. As Morris notes, the period up to 1780 was a formative one in which the first British ‘clubs’ formed as eating and drinking societies or informal coffee shop gatherings. Most of these societies still lacked much formal organisational structure and could strive for little more than conviviality. The groups that coalesced after 1780, however, often responded to a sense of instability or crisis – political, ideological, epidemiological, or religious – and assimilated formal associatio-nal trappings including extensive bylaws, constitutions and a leadership structure. This period to the end of the nineteenth century was one characterised by the increasing assertion of British middle-class dominance, which often relied on close relations with Christian evangelicalism as well as the burgeoning ‘free’ professions of the natural and academic sciences. The British club also proved an important instrument for the assertion of marginalised groups including the working classes and women as well as cultural and ethnic minorities. Marked by secularisation, increased state involvement, and growing leisure and consumption, the twentieth century represented a period in which the club became a central pillar of British civil society and social structure. (15)
Both English and German scholarship constitute an important background for the interpretation of European civil society, which has informed, in turn, many studies on the emergence of new urban elites. Generally, this work proceeds from the assumption that the constitution of urban elites represented processes of concrete social interaction and exclusion and depended therefore on the specific individuals or social groups that were active in city governance, in church boards, in economic interest groups, and not least, in the important cultural and social activities of associations. Not only political rulers but also leading economic, social, and cultural actors must be identified, and especially in their relationships to each other. Here reputation plays a tremendous role. One important index for the standing of individuals within the burgher community is election or appointment to one of the many informal bodies within the web of urban administration. These indices are especially well suited for conducting a value neutral analysis. In this sense, the elite is not constructed by the arbitrary categories of the historian but rather through the assessment of burgher contemporaries. (16)
The goal of some German elite studies has been to characterise these circles, to analyse their social components, their economic positions, their political orientations, and their cultural activities. Another element of this analysis has considered the relationships of individual groups to the political and economic leadership as well as the participation of elite members in both associational culture and religious organisations.
In view of these considerations, we would like to propose the following topics as a framework for our anthology. 1. One critical factor is the role of wealth and economic power in determining elite status and how this is expressed through specific city constitutions as well as the peculiarities of national law with respect to the relationship between city and state. This complex of relations will animate the first section of the book, which presents the examples of several British cities. 2. The meaning of cultural institutions and informal networks for urban political culture will be of importance in various chapters of the second section, which concentrate on elites in continental Europe. 3. The role of the masses and their influence on urban politics play a key role in the third section, which concerns North American cities.

Geeigneter erscheinen die Bereiche, in denen das Bürgertum in seinem ursprünglichen privaten und öffentlichen Zusammenhang untersucht werden könnte und in denen es sich am deutlichsten von anderen Sozialgruppen unterscheidet. Es ist dies im lokalen Zusammenhang die Sphäre der ebenfalls schlecht erforschten Familienbeziehungen und des geselligen Lebens in den Stiftungen und Vereinen. Gerade in dieser Hinsicht wäre es sinnvoll, nach einem an der derzeitigen wissenschaftlichen Forschung ausgerichtetem Konzept, erst einmal Quellen für die historische Grundlagenforschung zu erfassen und in einer Reihe von Quellenverzeichnissen zur Verfügung zu stellen. Ergänzend dazu könnten einzelne besonders aussagekräftige Quellen, in denen sich die verschiedenen Bereiche bürgerlichen Lebens bündeln – vor allem Autobiographien, Biographien oder Familiengeschichten – gesondert ediert werden.

Dabei stellt sich jeweils die Frage nach:

• der Art der Herrschaft des Bürgertums, ihre Ausübung, die Reichweite der Kompetenzen, die Mechanismen ihrer Legitimation.
  
• nach der inneren Differenzierung des Bürgertums - ihre wirtschaftliche und berufliche Basis.
  
• nach den Reaktionen des Bürgertums auf die Herausforderungen, die sich aus dem Entwicklungsprozeß der Stadt ergeben: etwa die soziale Frage, Wirtschafts- und infrastrukturelle Probleme, kulturpolitische Aufgabenstellungen und
  
• die Frage, wie konstituiert sich jeweils die bürgerliche Elite, was waren ihre Zielvorstellungen und wie setzte sie sie um.

Auf der anderen Seite fehlte der entscheidende Schlußstein zur Vollendung des liberalen Programms; die Verwaltungsmaschinerie, der Staatsapparat, war keineswegs liberalisiert worden. Trotz großer politischer Umwälzungen während des Verfassungskonflikts (1863), der Reichsgründung (1871), dem Jahr der innenpolitischen Wende unter BISMARCK (1878/79) und 1890 bei der Regierungsübernahme durch den Reichskanzler CAPRIVI kann von einem grundsätzlichen Erfolg der bürgerlichen Bewegung nicht gesprochen werden. In Bürokratie, Militär und Regierung bestimmten nach wie vor traditionelle, konservative Kräfte den Gang der Geschäfte. Sie repräsentierten noch vielfach die alte Gesellschaft, die grundbesitzenden Schichten, die an Einfluß verloren hatten, deren politische Herrschaft aber unangetastet blieb. (3) Das Programm der bürgerlichen Bewegung blieb in seinem entscheidenden Teil – Stärkung der Macht des Parlaments – unvollendet und das Abdriften ganzer sozialer Schichten vom Liberalismus, der fortschreitende Zerfall und die Stimmen- wie Mandatsverluste ließen die Hoffnungen auf eine durchgreifende Verfassungsreform schwinden. (4) Die Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Bürgertum und Großgrundbesitz, zwischen Liberalen und Konservativen hielten nach wie vor an und prägten die Zeit des Deutschen Kaiserreichs. Darüber können auch die zahlreichen Arrangements und Kompromisse nicht hinwegtäuschen. (5) Hinzu kam durch die stufenweise Erweiterung des Wahlrechts und die Wandlung der Bewegungen zu Parteien der Eintritt der Massen in die Politik. Die Massen, das waren die Bauern, die städtischen Mittelklassen und die Arbeiter. In dieser Hinsicht gewann die organisatorische Unabhängigkeit der Arbeiterbewegung gegenüber den beiden ideologischen und politischen Blöcken der Konservativen und Liberalen eine neue Dimension. Zwar bot die Zwischenstellung die Möglichkeit für ein eigenständiges Eingreifen in den politischen Gestaltungsprozeß dieser Gesellschaft, aber sie bot auch die Möglichkeit, dies nicht im Sinne des Fortschritts zu tun.
Was war das für eine Arbeiterbewegung? Ihre Charakterisierung spielt bei der Bestimmung der politischen Auseinandersetzungen eine wichtige Rolle. Allgemein wird bei der Arbeiterbewegung von einem radikalen Flügel mit sozialistischer Zielsetzung, dem exponierte Repräsentanten wie ROSA LUXEMBURG und KARL LIEBKNECHT angehörten, und – als Ausdruck der Verbürgerlichung – von einem reformistischen, nach Revision der grundsätzlichen Kapitalismuskritik strebenden Flügel um EDUARD BERNSTEIN und GEORG VON VOLLMAR ausgegangen. (6) Eine gewichtige Rolle beim Revisionsprozeß, wenn nicht die entscheidende überhaupt, maß man dabei den Gewerkschaften zu. Die Gewerkschaften also als Vorreiter der bürgerlichen Demokratie, ideologisch und politisch vom Liberalismus beeinflußt, so oder so ähnlich lauteten die Untersuchungsergebnisse. (7)
Diese Unterstellung einer großen Ausstrahlungskraft des Liberalismus, seines ideologischen Ausgreifens auf die Arbeiterbewegung, steht in einem eigentümlichen Gegensatz zum gleichzeitig konstatierten politischen Niedergang der liberalen Parteien. Auch kann so nur unzulänglich erklärt werden, warum, wenn beide den gleichen gesellschaftspolitischen Zielvorstellungen anhingen, es nicht zum Bündnis zwischen Liberalismus und Arbeiterbewegung gekommen war, sondern zur vielbeschriebenen „negativen Integration“ in den Staat und zur Konservierung der alten politischen Strukturen in der Novemberrevolution 1918 durch die Sozialdemokratie. (8) Es mußten sich also noch andere politische Zielvorstellungen innerhalb der Arbeiterbewegung entwickelt haben, andere als sozialistische Revolutionsutopie und bürgerliche Sozialreform, und hier spielten die Gewerkschaften tatsächlich eine zentrale Rolle.