作為德國歷史上的第一個民主政體─威瑪共和從誕生開始就是一個「生病的民主」，也是一個「沒有民主人的民主」。威瑪憲法的制定者除了架構起所謂的「程序性民主」之外，同時更在議會制的基礎上賦予民選的總統強大的權力─半總統制，加上欠缺民主文化，以及存在著反體制的政黨，致令威瑪憲法像是特洛伊木馬。最後在議會政治失敗的亂局中，希特勒(Adolf Hitler)率領納粹黨徒從木馬中一躍而出，用原本是保護民主的權力將民主政體合法地謀殺掉。

二戰後的聯邦德國痛定思痛，記取威瑪共和失敗的經驗，雙管齊下，重建民主。其除了在基本法中採用議會制的憲政體制和建設性不信任投票的機制外，更增列對違反民主原則或意圖推翻民主憲政體制的政黨之處罰規定，建立起所謂的「防禦性民主」。另外，大規模的政治文化改造運動，民主文化被有計畫地塑造，加上戰後聯邦德國的經濟持續繁榮，產生了大量的中產階級，除了有利於民主文化的出現，也導致政黨體系集中化與穩定化。在制度輸出面「產出效果」(output effect)的有利基礎上，再進一步創造「制度效果」(system effect)，終於成就了聯邦德國民主化的成功。

As the first democracy in German history, the Weimar Republic was “a sick democracy”, and “a democracy without democrats” ever since it was born. The composers of the Weimar Constitution not only constructed a so-called “procedural democracy”, but also gave the extreme power to the people-elected president – semi-presidentialism – based on the foundation of parliamentary system. Furthermore, accompanied with a political climate that lacked democratic culture and existing parties that were essentially against the system, the Weimar Constitution failed to assume its power to protect the democracy, and eventually it became a Trojan horse by which Adolf Hitler utilized to legally murder democracy during the parliamentary chaos.

After WWII, Federal Germany learned from the lesson of failure from the Weimar Republic and tried to reconstruct democracy by two measures: adopting the constitutional system of parliamentarism under the basic law and the mechanism of constructive vote of non-confidence, and implementing punitive rules to regulate any parties that violate the democratic principles or have the intention to overturn the democratic constitutional system – the so-called “defensive democracy.” Moreover, large-scale political culture reforms and the emergence of a large middle class resulted from continuous economic prosperity of the post-war Federal Germany not only benefited the rising of democratic culture, but also concentrated and stabilized party systems. The fact of further creation of the “system effect” based on favorable systematic “output effect” had thus achieved the success of Federal Germany’s democratization.