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Resisting democratic backsliding: An essay on Weimar, self-enforcing constitutions, and the Frankfurt School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2018

SUJIT CHOUDHRY
SUJIT CHOUDHRY*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley and Center for Constitutional Transitions, Boalt Hall, Berkeley, CA94720-7200
*
*Email: suj@constitutionaltransitions.org
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Abstract:

What, if anything, can constitutions do to resist democratic backsliding? The collapse of the Weimar Republic has led scholars of comparative politics to conclude that constitutional forms and institutions can do little to resist the breakdown of democracy and the rise of autocracy. This paper offers a constitutionalist response. The outlines of that answer can be found in decades-old policy documents produced by a set of German émigré scholars during and in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War: Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer. The secret reports root constitutional stability in the creation of a framework for bounded partisan pluralist contestation among political parties that track the principal social and economic cleavages, and that is rooted within, and does not seek to overthrow, the underlying political economy. Second, the secret reports highlight the importance of constitutional design in creating a constitutional infrastructure for bounded pluralistic political contestation, especially with respect to the role of political parties. Third, the secret reports suggest a counter-narrative of the German Basic Law as creating a framework for political contestation that reinforces constitutional stability instead of undermining it.

Keywords

constitutional designdemocratic backslidingpolitical partiesWeimar
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 54 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

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22 Ibid 92 (original emphasis).

23 Ibid 92, 93.

24 Ibid 92 (original emphases).

25 Ibid 94 (‘Anchoring political parties in the constitution also makes it possible to democratize the formation of the will of the community within this sphere.’) (original emphasis).

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30 Ibid.