Articles for tag: Autoritarismus, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Populism

Of Punks and Nerds

The 1970s and 80s brought about two new social archetypes – the punk and the nerd. While the anti-establishment punk wants to trash the (economic, political, social) system, wants to provoke and get attention for the sake of it, the nerd behaves rather inconspicuously but effectively. He might be socially awkward and overlooked at first, but skilled and smart as he is, he knows the rules of the game and the mechanisms to get ahead with his plans. When looking at different authoritarian leaders in the world today, these two archetypes come to mind. In this blogpost, I want to use these two archetype of authoritarian leaders to analyse their behaviour and sketch the contours of an analytical framework to compare and distinguish between them.

27. September 2022

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Status Quo Hegemony?

For over a decade now, the mainstream liberal discourse, also on the Verfassungsblog, has consisted in the incantation of one mantra: ‘populists’ are destroying ‘the rule of law’. What started as an attempt to describe the post-2011 situation in Hungary has gradually become a conceptual master key or, better yet, a jack-of-all-trades.

6. Oktober 2020

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Corona Constitutional #25: Populistische Auto­immunreaktion

Die rechtsextremen und die weniger rechtsextremen Mitglieder der AfD streiten sich über den Rauswurf ihres Brandenburgischen Landesvorsitzenden. Oder war es doch kein Rauswurf? Kann es sein, das Andreas Kalbitz 7 Jahre lang Parteimitglied war, ohne eines zu sein? Über die parteienrechtlichen Fragen, die der Causa Kalbitz zugrunde liegen, unterhält sich Max Steinbeis im heutigen Podcast mit SVEN JÜRGENSEN, Parteienforscher an der Universität Düsseldorf und Associate Editor des Verfassungsblogs.

19. Mai 2020

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Die Krise und die Versprechen der Demokratie in der Longe durée des 20. Jahrhunderts

Das Versprechen der Demokratie ist nicht, dass dem Willen des Volkes Geltung verschafft wird. Denn den Willen des Volkes gibt es nicht. Es gibt vielmehr nur unzählige Kombinationen von Meinungen und Interessen, aus denen jeweils von neuem ein dem Volk zurechenbarer Wille gebildet werden muss. In dem so gebildeten Willen werden sich nie alle wieder finden. Das Versprechen der Demokratie ist aber, dass alle bei der Bildung des Willens mitwirken und also Einfluss auf das Ergebnis nehmen können und dass der jeweiligen Mehrheit nicht alles erlaubt ist, insbesondere nicht, die Minderheit um ihre Chancen zu bringen, selbst Mehrheit zu werden, samt den Voraussetzungen, die dafür nötig sind.

27. Februar 2020

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When Journalists Weaken Democracy or How to Better Communicate the Rule of Law

Discussing years of controversies between Polish lawyers and the ruling Law and Justice party, the law professor Marcin Matczak concluded: “We won the legal discussions, but we lost the public debate.” Despite manifest violations of the law, Poland’s ruling party did not lose votes in recent parliamentary elections. In Hungary the situation seems to have been even worse. The public debate was not lost, it hardly took place. That’s a problem.

15. November 2019

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Abusive Constitutional Lip Service

Amid Turkey’s heated agenda of constitutional politics during the past few years one issue seems to have received little to no attention: President Erdogan’s repeated call for reinstating the death penalty. Can Erdogan reinstate the death penalty? No, simply because he doesn’t have enough political support. But that isn’t the point. The point is how Erdogan uses the (unfulfillable) constitutional promise to reinstate the death penalty to consolidate his base.

24. Oktober 2019

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Resentment, Populism and Political Strategies in Italy

After Matteo Salvini announced his plan of holding snap elections, the former Italian prime minister (Presidente del Consiglio), Matteo Renzi launched the idea to postpone elections by forming a transistional government supported by the Partito democratico and the MoVimento 5 stelle, amongst others. Renzi knows that, according to the polls, Salvini’s political party (the Lega) could win the elections and form a government with Fratelli d’Italia, a post-fascist and still far-right party or with Forza Italia, the party created by Silvio Berlusconi. But would this move prevent a populist government?

15. August 2019

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Constitutional Resilience to Populism: Four Theses

Let us make a plea for modesty. Constitutional democrats need to be clear-eyed and realistic about what good constitutional design can do. We need to steer a middle course between constitutional idealism and nihilism. Constitutional idealists argue that thoughtful and intelligent constitutional design can largely eliminate the risk posed by populism; constitutional nihilists respond by arguing that there is little, if anything, that constitutional design can do in the face of the populist challenge that secures victory at the ballot box and captures the state from within.

11. Dezember 2018

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