Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Mirjam Künkler, and Tine Stein
Abstract
The book is a first representative edition in English of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s writings on constitutional, legal, and political theory. As a German legal scholar and former judge on Germany’s federal constitutional court, Böckenförde has shaped legal and political discourse in twentieth century Germany like few others. Böckenförde’s oeuvre represents a classic strand of German political and legal thinking beyond Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, that is historically rooted, normatively firm, and at the same time sharply analytical, helping its readers to understand the modern state as a pol ... More
The book is a first representative edition in English of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s writings on constitutional, legal, and political theory. As a German legal scholar and former judge on Germany’s federal constitutional court, Böckenförde has shaped legal and political discourse in twentieth century Germany like few others. Böckenförde’s oeuvre represents a classic strand of German political and legal thinking beyond Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, that is historically rooted, normatively firm, and at the same time sharply analytical, helping its readers to understand the modern state as a political order deeply connected to law. The included essays discuss problems of the constitutional state, changes in the meaning of the concept „constitution“, the meaning of constituent power, Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political, Hobbes’ notions of natural and positive law, the purposes of the modern state, whether states of emergency should be constitutionalized, a critique of the value-based grounding of law, fundamental rights as constitutional norms, theory and interpretation of fundamental rights, the protection of liberty against societal power, citizenship and the concept of nationality, Europeanization, shifts not losses in sovereignty, and needs for state action to protect citizens’ political and economic rights in the context of globalization.
Keywords:
Constitutional theory,
theory of the state,
law and politics,
Europeanization,
constituent power,
fundamental rights,
Carl Schmitt,
Hermann Heller
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198714965 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2017 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198714965.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, author
Professor Emeritus, University of Freiburg
Mirjam Künkler, editor
Princeton University
Tine Stein, editor
Professor of Political Theory
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