Download or read book Popular Sovereignty and the Crisis of German Constitutional Law written by Peter C. Caldwell and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A path-breaking critical analysis of the meaning and interpretation of the German constitution in the Weimar years (1919-1933).
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt written by Jens Meierhenrich and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 873 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt collects thirty original chapters on the diverse oeuvre of one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Uniquely located at the intersection of law, the social sciences, and the humanities, it brings together sophisticated yet accessible interpretations of Schmitt's sprawling thought and complicated biography.
Download or read book Borrowing Constitutional Designs written by Cindy Skach and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the collapse of communism, some thirty countries scrambled to craft democratic constitutions. Surprisingly, the constitutional model they most often chose was neither the pure parliamentary model found in most of Western Europe at the time, nor the presidential model of the Americas. Rather, it was semi-presidentialism--a rare model known more generally as the "French type." This constitutional model melded elements of pure presidentialism with those of pure parliamentarism. Specifically, semi-presidentialism combined a popularly elected head of state with a head of government responsible to a legislature. Borrowing Constitutional Designs questions the hasty adoption of semi-presidentialism by new democracies. Drawing on rich case studies of two of the most important countries for European politics in the twentieth century--Weimar Germany and the French Fifth Republic--Cindy Skach offers the first theoretically focused, and historically grounded, analysis of semi-presidentialism and democracy. She demonstrates that constitutional choice matters, because under certain conditions, semi-presidentialism structures incentives that make democratic consolidation difficult or that actually contribute to democratic collapse. She offers a new theory of constitutional design, integrating insights from law and the social sciences. In doing so, Skach challenges both democratic theory and democratic practice. This book will be welcomed not only by scholars and practitioners of constitutional law but also by those in fields such as comparative politics, European politics and history, and international and public affairs.
Download or read book Weimar written by Arthur Jacobson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-01-06 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This selection of the major works of constitutional theory during the Weimar period reflects the reactions of legal scholars to a state in permanent crisis, a society in which all bets were off. Yet the Weimar Republic's brief experiment in constitutionalism laid the groundwork for the postwar Federal Republic, and today its lessons can be of use to states throughout the world. Weimar legal theory is a key to understanding the experience of nations turning from traditional, religious, or command-and-control forms of legitimation to the rule of law. Only two of these authors, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, have been published to any extent in English, but they and the others whose writings are translated here played key roles in the political and constitutional struggles of the Weimar Republic. Critical introductions to all the theorists and commentaries on their works have been provided by experts from Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United States. In their general introduction, the editors place the Weimar debate in the context of the history and politics of the Weimar Republic and the struggle for constitutionalism in Germany. This critical scrutiny of the Weimar jurisprudence of crisis offers an invaluable overview of the perils and promise of constitutional development in states that lack an entrenched tradition of constitutionalism.
Download or read book Carl Schmitt s State and Constitutional Theory written by Benjamin A. Schupmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a constitutional democracy commit suicide? Can an illiberal antidemocratic party legitimately obtain power through democratic elections and amend liberalism and democracy out of the constitution entirely? In Weimar Germany, these theoretical questions were both practically and existentially relevant. By 1932, the Nazi and Communist parties combined held a majority of seats in parliament. Neither accepted the legitimacy of liberal democracy. Their only reason for participating democratically was to amend the constitution out of existence. This book analyses Carl Schmitt's state and constitutional theory and shows how it was conceived in response to the Weimar crisis. Right-wing and left-wing political extremists recognized that a path to legal revolution lay in the Weimar constitution's combination of democratic procedures, total neutrality toward political goals, and positive law. Schmitt's writings sought to address the unique problems posed by mass democracy. Schmitt's thought anticipated 'constrained' or 'militant' democracy, a type of constitution that guards against subversive expressions of popular sovereignty and whose mechanisms include the entrenchment of basic constitutional commitments and party bans. Schmitt's state and constitutional theory remains important: the problems he identified continue to exist within liberal democratic states. Schmitt offers democrats today a novel way to understand the legitimacy of liberal democracy and the limits of constitutional change.
Download or read book The Guardian of the Constitution written by Hans Kelsen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English translation of Hans Kelsen's and Carl Schmitt's debate on the 'Guardian of the Constitution'.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic written by Nadine Rossol and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Weimar Republic was a turbulent and pivotal period of German and European history and a laboratory of modernity. The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic provides an unsurpassed panorama of German history from 1918 to 1933, offering an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the fascinating history of the Weimar Republic.
Download or read book Law as Politics written by David Dyzenhaus and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Articles previously published in the Canadian journal of law and jurisprudence.
Download or read book Constitutional Failure written by Ellen Kennedy and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-29 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVThe author's argument that Carl Schmitt's critique of Weimar Republic liberalism cannot be countered by reforming liberalism is also a contribution to current political theory and an analysis of contemporary liberalism./div
Download or read book Legality and Legitimacy written by Carl Schmitt and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2004-02-26 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Schmitt ranks among the most original and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. His incisive criticisms of Enlightenment political thought and liberal political practice remain as shocking and significant today as when they first appeared in Weimar Germany. Unavailable in English until now, Legality and Legitimacy was composed in 1932, in the midst of the crisis that would lead to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and only a matter of months before Schmitt’s collaboration with the Nazis. In this important work, Schmitt questions the political viability of liberal constitutionalism, parliamentary government, and the rule of law. Liberal governments, he argues, cannot respond effectively to challenges by radical groups like the Nazis or Communists. Only a presidential regime subject to few, if any, practical limitations can ensure domestic security in a highly pluralistic society. Legality and Legitimacy is sure to provide a compelling reference point in contemporary debates over the challenges facing constitutional democracies today. In addition to Jeffrey Seitzer’s translation of the 1932 text itself, this volume contains his translation of Schmitt’s 1958 commentary on the work, extensive explanatory notes, and an appendix including selected articles of the Weimar constitution. John P. McCormick’s introduction places Legality and Legitimacy in its historical context, clarifies some of the intricacies of the argument, and ultimately contests Schmitt’s claims regarding the inherent weakness of parliamentarism, constitutionalism, and the rule of law.
Download or read book The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany written by Donald P. Kommers and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kommers's comprehensive work surveys the development of German constitutional doctrine between 1949, when the Federal Constitutional Court was founded, and 1996. Extensively revised and expanded to take into account recent developments since German unification, this second edition describes the background, structure, and functions of the Court and provides extensive commentary on German constitutional interpretation, and includes translations of seventy-eight landmark decisions. These cases include the highly controversial religious liberty and free speech cases handed down in 1995.
Download or read book The Law Under the Swastika written by Michael Stolleis and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-02-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Stolleis is part of a younger generation and is determined to honestly confront the past in hopes of preventing the same injustices from happening in the future.
Download or read book Constitutional Theory written by Carl Schmitt and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-23 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl Schmitt’s magnum opus, Constitutional Theory, was originally published in 1928 and has been in print in German ever since. This volume makes Schmitt’s masterpiece of comparative constitutionalism available to English-language readers for the first time. Schmitt is considered by many to be one of the most original—and, because of his collaboration with the Nazi party, controversial—political thinkers of the twentieth century. In Constitutional Theory, Schmitt provides a highly distinctive and provocative interpretation of the Weimar Constitution. At the center of this interpretation lies his famous argument that the legitimacy of a constitution depends on a sovereign decision of the people. In addition to being subject to long-standing debate among legal and political theorists in Western Europe and the United States, this theory of constitution-making as decision has profoundly influenced constitutional theorists and designers in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Constitutional Theory is a significant departure from Schmitt’s more polemical Weimar-era works not just in terms of its moderate tone. Through a comparative history of constitutional government in Europe and the United States, Schmitt develops an understanding of liberal constitutionalism that makes room for a strong, independent state. This edition includes an introduction by Jeffrey Seitzer and Christopher Thornhill outlining the cultural, intellectual, and political contexts in which Schmitt wrote Constitutional Theory; they point out what is distinctive about the work, examine its reception in the postwar era, and consider its larger theoretical ramifications. This volume also contains extensive editorial notes and a translation of the Weimar Constitution.
Download or read book Sovereignty in Action written by Bas Leijssenaar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sovereignty, originally the figure of 'sovereign', then the state, today meets new challenges of globalization and privatization of power.
Download or read book From Liberal Democracy to Fascism written by Peter Caldwell and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Weimar Republic – from 1919 until 1933, when Hitler came into power – witnessed crucial debates on law and politics. These debates are reexamined in this book. Were, for example, democratic rules and procedures an adequate basis for democracy, as Hugo Preuss and Hans Kelsen suggested? Or should constitutional law elaborate the deeper, basic principles embedded in the democratic constitution itself, as Hermann Heller argued? Was the president the immediate “guardian of the constitution”, as Carl Schmitt’s concept of “representation” suggested? Or was Schmitt’s concept itself subject to Walter Benjamin’s critique of the aura of authenticity? These, and other typical Weimar-era debates helped shape West German constitutionalism. The former labor lawyer on the left Ernst Fraenkel, for example, began to develop a general theory of dictatorship mass democracy while in exile, which influenced the new discipline of political science after the war. Similarly, Gerhard Leibholz, an anti-positivist lawyer in Weimar, served on the first Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany, helping to consolidate its new constitutional culture.
Download or read book The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy written by Carl Schmitt and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1988-06-22 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. Described both as "the Hobbes of our age" and as "the philosophical godfather of Nazism," Carl Schmitt was a brilliant and controversial political theorist whose doctrine of political leadership and critique of liberal democratic ideals distinguish him as one of the most original contributors to modern political theory. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. First published in 1923, it has often been viewed as an attempt to destroy parliamentarism; in fact, it was Schmitt's attempt to defend the Weimar constitution. The introduction to this new translation places the book in proper historical context and provides a useful guide to several aspects of Weimar political culture. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.
Download or read book Dictatorship written by Carl Schmitt and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in English for the first time, Dictatorship is Carl Schmitt’s most scholarly book and arguably a paradigm for his entire work. Written shortly after the Russian Revolution and the First World War, Schmitt analyses the problem of the state of emergency and the power of the Reichspräsident in declaring it. Dictatorship, Schmitt argues, is a necessary legal institution in constitutional law and has been wrongly portrayed as just the arbitrary rule of a so-called dictator. Dictatorship is an essential book for understanding the work of Carl Schmitt and a major contribution to the modern theory of a democratic, constitutional state. And despite being written in the early part of the twentieth century, it speaks with remarkable prescience to our contemporary political concerns.
