Constitutional and political theory

selected writings

Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (b. 1930, d. 2019) is one of Europe's foremost legal scholars and political thinkers. As a scholar of constitutional law and a judge on Germany's Federal Constitutional Court (December 1983 - May 1996), Böckenförde has been a major contributor to contemporary debates ...

New constitutional horizons

towards a pluralist constitutional theory

We live in a pluralist world of multi-level law and governance. More than ever before multiple legal systems and governing authorities at different levels - sub-state, state, supranational, international - are recognized as applying to, and claiming authority over, the affairs of the same sets of individuals ...

Religion, law and democracy

selected writings. Volume II

Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (1930-2019) was one of Europe's foremost legal scholars and political thinkers. As a scholar of constitutional law and a judge on Germany's Federal Constitutional Court (1983-1996), Böckenförde was a major contributor to contemporary debates in legal and political theory, to the ...

Constituent Power and the Law

Constituent power is the power to create new constitutions. Frequently exercised during political revolutions, it has been historically associated with extra-legality and violations of the established legal order. This book examines the relationship between constituent power and the law. It considers the place of constituent ...

Europe's functional Constitution

a theory of constitutionalism beyond the State

Constitutionalism has become a byword for legitimate government, but is it fated to lose its relevance as constitutional states relinquish power to international institutions? This book evaluates the extent to which constitutionalism, as an empirical idea and normative ideal, can be adapted to institutions beyond ...

After Public Law

Public law has been conceived in many different ways, sometimes overlapping, often conflicting. However in recent years a common theme running through the discussions of public law is one of loss. What function and future can public law have in this rapidly transforming landscape, where ...

Unconstitutional Constitutional amendments

the limits of amendment powers

Can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? The problem of 'unconstitutional constitutional amendments' has become one of the most widely debated issues in comparative constitutional theory, constitutional design, and constitutional adjudication. This book describes and analyses the increasing tendency in global constitutionalism to substantively limit formal changes ...

Constitutionalism

past, present, and future

Constitutionalism: Past, Present, and Future is the definitive collection of Dieter Grimm's most influential writings on constitutional thought and interpretation. The essays included in this volume explore the conditions under which the modern constitution could emerge; they treat the characteristics that must be given ...

Popular sovereignty in Early Modern constitutional thought

Popular sovereignty - the doctrine that the public powers of state originate in a concessive grant of power from "the people" - is the cardinal doctrine of modern constitutional theory, placing full constitutional authority in the people at large, rather than in the hands of judges, kings ...

Euroconstitutionalism and its discontents

This book addresses the question of social constitutionalism, especially with regard to its role in the contemporary European project. For reasons of history and democracy, Europeans share a deep commitment to social constitutionalism. But in the contemporary European constitutional debate, constitutionalism and social democracy have ...

The metaethics of constitutional adjudication

In this book Bosko Tripkovic develops a theory of value-based arguments in constitutional adjudication. In contrast to the standard question of constitutional theory that asks whether the courts get moral answers wrong, it asks a more fundamental question of whether the courts get the morality ...

The cultural defense of nations

a liberal theory of majority rights

Never in human history has so much attention been paid to human movement. Global migration yields demographic shifts of historical significance, profoundly shaking up world politics as has been seen in the refugee crisis, the Brexit referendum, and the 2016 US election. The Cultural Defense ...

Constitutional and Political Theory

selected writings

Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde (b. 1930) is one of Europe's foremost legal scholars and political thinkers. As a scholar of constitutional law and a judge on Germany's Federal Constitutional Court (December 1983 - May 1996), Bockenforde has been a major contributor to contemporary debates in legal ...

The cosmopolitan constitution

Originally the constitution was expected to express and channel popular sovereignty. It was the work of freedom, springing from and facilitating collective self-determination. After the Second World War this perspective changed: the modern constitution owes its authority not only to collective authorship, it also must ...

Europe's functional Constitution

a theory of constitutionalism beyond the State

Constitutionalism has become a byword for legitimate government, but is it fated to lose its relevance as constitutional states relinquish power to international institutions? This book evaluates the extent to which constitutionalism, as an empirical idea and normative ideal, can be adapted to institutions beyond ...

Post sovereign constitution making

learning and making

Constitutional politics has become a major terrain of contemporary struggles. Contestation around designing, replacing, revising, and dramatically re-interpreting constitutions is proliferating worldwide. Starting with Southern Europe in post-Franco Spain, then in the ex-Communist countries in Central Europe, post-apartheid South Africa, and now in the Arab ...

Popular sovereignty in early Mmdern constitutional thought

Popular sovereignty - the doctrine that the public powers of state originate in a concessive grant of power from 'the people' - is perhaps the cardinal doctrine of modern constitutional theory, placing full constitutional authority in the people at large, rather than in the hands of judges ...

Constitutional Courts and deliberative democracy

Contemporary democracies have granted an expansive amount of power to unelected judges that sit in constitutional or supreme courts. This power shift has never been easily squared with the institutional backbones through which democracy is popularly supposed to be structured. The best institutional translation of ...

The three branches

a comparative model of separation of powers

The idea of the separation of powers is still popular in much political and constitutional discourse, though its meaning for the modern state remains unclear and contested. This book develops a new, comprehensive, and systematic account of the principle. It then applies this new concept ...

The global model of constitutional rights

Since the end of the Second World War and the subsequent success of constitutional judicial review, one particular model of constitutional rights has had remarkable success, first in Europe and now globally. This global model of constitutional rights is characterized by an extremely broad approach ...