Wehler sees the aggressive foreign policies of the German Empire, especially under Kaiser Wilhelm II, largely as part of an effort on the part of the government to distract the German people from the lack of internal democracy. The ' ("primacy of domestic politics") argument to explain foreign policy, for which Wehler owes much to the work of Eckart Kehr, places him against the traditional ' ("primacy of foreign politics") thesis championed by historians, such as Gerhard Ritter, Klaus Hildebrand, Andreas Hillgruber and Ludwig Dehio. Wehler advocates the concept of social imperialism, which he defined as "the diversions outwards of internal tensions and forces of change in order to preserve the social and political status quo", and as a "defensive ideology" to counter the "disruptive effects of industrialization on the social and economic structure of Germany".