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The exact nature of Germany's political system is a very controversial topic amongst historians. Traditionally it was seen as being very restrictive, with the Kaiser, Chancellor and Imperial Cabinet controlling the political scene and with little chance for non-establishment parties to challenge this. However, more recent works have focused outside the Reichstag and found that there was actually a developing political culture.

It's true that in the strictest legal sense, the majority of power lay outside of any democratically elected body. The Kaiser, as head of state, was Commander in Chief of the armed forces, had the power to appoint and dismiss the Chancellor and Imperial Ministers, make treaties and declare war. The day-to-day running of the Government was carried out by the Chancellor and Imperial Cabinet, who were not allowed to be members of either of the two houses of Parliament. Beneath the Chancellor and Cabinet were the two legislative bodies of the Reich, the Bundesrat and the Reichstag. The Bundesrat was composed of delegates from each of the German States, roughly allotted by population, with Prussia at the top with 17 delegates. The two delegates from Alsace-Lorraine were also appointed by Prussia, in effect giving them 19 votes. While Prussia far and away had the largest population and economy, they were the only State with enough members to veto legislation single-handedly. The Bundesrat could both propose and veto legislation. The Reichstag was elected by all males over 25, using a secret ballot, and had to approve all legislation. The constitution also gave them the ability to introduce legislation, but this was rarely used. Each state also had its own regional assembly or Diet and was given control over local affairs such as health, education or policing, while the Imperial Government retained control over defence, foreign policy and other national issues. The Prussian Diet used a three tiered system of voting whereby the votes of the richest part of the population counted more than the votes of the rest. This gave a disproportionate voice to the rich, and since Prussia was the most influential in the national bodies as well, this was also represented on a national level.

It's important to remember that Germany in this period underwent massive change. The population grew by 24 million people, and underwent extreme urbanisation. The seven largest cities in Germany all doubled in population, the populations of Leipzig, Munich and Hamburg more than tripled. Germany also industrialised during this period, and by 1914 had an industrial output to rival Great Britain. She also led in new industries such as chemical production and electronics. This also had an impact on the political system. As in other European countries, the process of industrialisation and urbanisation saw the creation of an urban working class, and in line with this the development of Socialist parties. In Germany, this took the form of the SPD (German Socialist Party). Anti-Socialist legislation in 1878 did its best to stop the rise of socialism, forbidding 'publications in which social-democratic, socialistic, or communistic endeavours aimed at the overthrow of the existing political or social order are manifested in a manner calculated to endanger the public peace, and particularly the harmony among all classes of the population'. However, despite the repression, by the 1912 election they would be the largest socialist party in the world, and recieved 4.2m votes. The party was highly organised in its strongholds and had party officials in each block, responsible for collecting fees and encouraging engagement. It also provided social organisations beyond the political sphere, and was closely linked to the trade unions. Herbert Morrison, a politician in the British Labour party, visited the SPD on a fact finding mission and described with admiration how 'the Social Democratic Party Executive could sit on the top floor of the Vorwärts [The SPD newspaper] building, pass a manifesto paragraph by paragraph, have it put into type and circulated to every tenement in the city of Berlin by the next morning'. However, as much as the SPD organisational structure is praised, they had very little presence outside of their strongholds, and workers migrating into the cities were often lukewarm towards them. One study estimates that only 5% of the party members in Kiel would actually attend meetings.

Another party which faced significant political repression was the Zentrums Partei, or Centre Party, a socially conservative party which was strongest in the South amongst Bavarian Catholics and had strong links to the Catholic church. They were heavily repressed by Bismarck during the Kulturkampf, a period in which he attempted to wipe out competing identities such as Catholicism or Polishness, to create a more unified Protestant German identity. However, despite Bismarck's best efforts he was unable to stamp out political catholicism, and indeed the party achieved its strongest election result at the height of Kulturkampf. However, the party's close links to the Catholic Church meant that it struggled to gain votes from Protestants, and so only achieved an average of 20% vote share.

In terms of other non-establishment parties, the Polish, Danish and Alsace-Lorraine ethnic minorities also had their own political parties, and would usually gain about 25 seats between them in elections, making them a reasonably significant voting bloc. Since Imperial policy tended to emphasise the creation of a unified German identity, it was important that these ethnic minorities had their own political representation.

The two main parties of the establishment were the National Liberal Party and the Free Conservative Party, who were Centre Left and Centre Right respectively. It was on these two parties and the occasional support of the Centre Party which various Chancellors were forced to rely on for their majority to pass legislation in the Reichstag. Since these two parties had less organisational strength than the ZP or SPD, they had a smaller core vote, and entered a steady decline over time, eventually being eclipsed by the ZP and SPD.

In terms of non-party political organisations, Imperial Germany was home to a number of popular pressure groups, which were generally right wing or militarist. It has been theorised that the lack of a coherent ideology amongst the right wing parties and also their declining vote share meant that more people turned to popular pressure groups to express their political will. The most controversial of these was the Society for Germandom in the Eastern Marches, also called Hakatisten, who aimed to erase the Polish identity in Eastern Germany. By 1914 they had 54,000 members. Other pressure groups included The Navy League (300,000 members), Pan-German League (21,000 members by 1892, and saw sustained growth after this period), Agrarian League (330,000 members), German Army League (100,000 members) and German Colonial Society (40,000 members). While the movements were generally toothless, they did manage to issue some serious challenges to the German Government, as the Navy League and the Pan-German League did separately in 1908, over the Tirpitz Plan and Daily Telegraph Affair. There were no similar movements for single issues on the left wing, apart from the Trade Unions, whose membership reached 2.7m, but they were in any case closely linked to the SPD.

Clearly, there was a genuine desire to engage in the politics of Imperial Germany, despite the barriers to doing so. This challenges the idea that German politics was only a matter for the Imperial Cabinet. However, despite high levels of political consciousness and engagement, fledgling German democracy wasn't all plain sailing. While freedom of the press was guaranteed, in practice there were significant restrictions on this. It was a constant miracle that the SPD papers were ever published, and from 1880-1890 a total of 2600 years in prison were handed out to people who broke Lese Majeste laws. In 1895 as well, there were 35,288 cases of slander dealt with by the German courts (by way of comparison, there were 438 in Britain). The editors of the satirical magazine Simplicissimus were also given several prison sentences. Although legal repression never broke opposition movements and indeed may have strengthened them in some cases (Simplicissimus had a circulation of 85,000 and copies were passed around friends and colleagues), there were still significant legal barriers.