Not another seminar about populism! Nowadays, political science students have a hard time avoiding Orbán and Co. in their curricula. Within the last years, authoritarian politicians have (successfully) tried to dismantle democracies under the veil of an alleged rule of law and the triumph of right-wing populists has left political scientists baffled with one question: Where does all this public support come from?
Yet, this seminar will not search for the reasons for the electoral success of right-wing populists. Rather, it will ask the systematic question whether constitutional democracy has indeed failed its task to prevent its own demise: How is it possible to deprive media from their freedom and substantially hamper NGO funding – although the rule of law and strong constitutions and institutions should be a safeguard against such actions? Which mechanisms and gateways are used? And why do interventions by courts and international organisations such as the EU fail?
The seminar blends political science, sociology and jurisprudence. All three schools of thoughts shall be integrated with each other to form a thorough understanding of how legal doctrine and other political institutions work together, how written law is transformed into real-life actions and how law can thus (not) be a guarantor of eternity to a democratic system. Especially the latter aspect as a crucial element to the rule of law shall be discussed when looking at current political developments. The guiding questions are:
- How does legal doctrine function and how does law unfold its empirical validity in a constitutional democracy?
- Why and how can law in a democratic system be abused for anti-democratic means?
- Can and should law be an institution standing above the political process?
- Is law “unbreakable”?
The first part of the seminar will lay down the foundations of the modern state: Liberalism, Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law as parts of democracy. Furthermore, we will discuss different approaches towards constitutional law and constitutional doctrine from the perspectives of legal theory and the sociology of law. In the second part, this theoretical foundation shall serve to examine concrete cases in which arguably anti-democratic changes have been made to a democratic system. We will learn and discuss concepts like "stealth authoritarianism", "abusive constitutionalism" or "autocratic legalism" in order to understand political events such as the political takeover of the Law and Justice Party in Poland.
The seminar will always be open for suggestions from its participants. Most importantly, the content of this seminar shall provide students with solid knowledge on (1) the functioning of the rule of law and (2) the functioning of legal doctrine, all in the light of current hard times for democracy.
The Prüfungsleistung will be an essay of 4 to 5 pages.
The seminar is open for students from all departments. It will be held in English if non-German speakers and exchange students participate. If all participants happen to be German speakers, the seminar language will be switched to German.
- Lehrende/r: Matthias Freise
- Lehrende/r: Philipp Woschek