19 世纪 70 年代，德意志帝国的自由主义者试图创造一种与开明的新教价值观同义的国家价值观，俾斯麦为维持政党势力的平衡和捍卫国家安全，二者合力发动了一场将集体想象的世界之间的对抗融入日常实践领域的文化斗争，但二者均未如愿。一方面，天主教因顽强抵抗而被视为对抗政治压迫的英雄，其以世俗化组织扩散和天主教精英阶层的民主化为主要内容的现代化转变使其在帝国内不断壮大，但是对于被冠以“国家公敌”之名的恐惧促使其与俾斯麦和解；另一方面，社会主义政党的崛起和国家自由党的分裂使俾斯麦疲于奔命，帝国僵化的政治机制使俾斯麦失去了有力支持，双方最终适时和解。在文化斗争中，俾斯麦作为统治阶级的代表，开辟出一种保守性的稳定政策，利用合乎时势的手段与中央党达成有限的妥协，建立“君主权力的稳定装置”，但这是以牺牲长期解决方案为代价，意味着帝国失去了一次修正其僵化政治机制的机会。这一机制虽然在此后历经政治秩序的更迭和政治结构的重组，但并没有焕然一新，为这一机制提供基础的竞争性威权主义体制因俾斯麦的有意维护、资产阶级自由党与中央党对这种现代式独裁政治的默许和帝国的封建传统而产生巨大且持久的影响，在威廉二世进行现代性发扬之后反而构成了一战爆发的体制性根源。

       In the 1870s, the libertarians of German Empire wanted to create a kind of national values, which was largely synonymous with those of enlightened Protestantism, while Bismarck wanted to maintain the balance of political parties and safeguard national security. The two jointly launched the Kulturkampf that integrated the confrontation of the collectively imagined world into the field of daily practice, but neither of them did. On the one hand, Catholicism was regarded as a hero against political oppression because of its tenacious resistance. Its modern transformation, 
mainly focusing on the proliferation of secular organizations and the democratization of the Catholic elite, made it grow stronger in the empire. But the fear of being called “Enemy of the State” prompted it to reconcile with Bismarck. On the other hand, Bismarck was overwhelmed by the rise of socialist party and the National Liberal Party’s fragmentation. As well as, the ossified 
political mechanism of the empire deprived Bismarck of strong support. The two sides finally reconciled in due course. During the Kulturkampf, Bismarck, as the representative of the ruling class, pioneered a conservative stabilization policy and reached a limited compromise with Catholic Center Party by timely means to establish a “stabilizing device for monarchy power”. But these practices were at the expense of a long-term solution, which meant that the empire lost an opportunity to revise its ossified political mechanism. Although this mechanism underwent the change of the political order and the reorganization of the political structure since then, it didn’t take on an altogether new aspect. The competitive authoritarianism system that provided the foundation for this mechanism had a huge and lasting impact due to Bismarck’s intentional maintenance, the acquiescence of the bourgeois Liberal Party and Catholic Center Party in this modern dictatorship, and the feudal tradition of the empire. After Kaiser Wilhelm II modernized the system, it was regarded as the institutional root of the outbreak of World War I.