Collective democracy

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Collective democracy is a concept of democracy developed by the legal scholar Ernst Fraenkel in the 1920s, according to which the alienation of individuals should be compensated for through the participation of associations .

Contrary to the tradition developed in German legal philosophy since Hegel , which equates law and law , Fraenkel was concerned with separating the sphere of the political and the law. According to Fraenkel, collective democracy claims "that in the formation of the will of the state no longer the individual, not just the individual , but also the associations as such". It does not form a lawless area and does not stand outside the state, but the rule of law and the constitution merely form the "roof" (Wildt) under which collective democracy is formed. The aim of Fraenkel's reflections on collective democracy were - like his later theories on pluralism - "to complement the primarily state-mediated democracy with a social democracy."

Legal philosophical standpoints

In terms of legal philosophy, Fraenkel's ideas stand in opposition to the better-known positions of Carl Schmitt and Franz Neumann . The social scientist Michael Wildt, who also considers Fraenkel's theses on collective democracy to be fundamental in Fraenkel's analysis of the National Socialist form of government, formulates this contrast as follows:

“With these considerations Fraenkel was immune to Carl Schmitt's theses about the identity of the governed with the governing or the necessary homogeneity of the people. Fraenkel held fast not only to the fact of social inequality, but also to the reality of social division and the dispute as an essential element in the formation of compromises. In contrast to Franz Neumann, who read Carl Schmitt from the left in the final phase of the Weimar Republic , transferred the friend-foe identifier to the contrast between capital and labor and declared parliamentary democracy to be incapable of resolving this conflict, Fraenkel retained the pluralism concept before similar approximations to Schmitt's authoritarian recording theory, whom Fraenkel described after the war as the 'most imaginative and dangerous, because the most unstable German social scientist of our time', who did not pursue law, but always only 'situation science'. "

literature

  • Hubertus Buchstein : Is Ernst Fraenkel a classic? In: Leviathan - Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft 26, 4, 1998, pp. 458–481.
  • Ernst Fraenkel: Collected writings. Volume 1: Law and Politics in the Weimar Republic. Edited by Hubertus Buchstein with the collaboration of Rainer Kühn. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999.
  • Ernst Fraenkel: Instead of a preface. 1973.
  • Ernst Fraenkel: Collective Democracy. 1929.
  • Ernst Fraenkel: 1919–1929. On Constitution Day. 1929.
  • Ernst Fraenkel: The Political Significance of Labor Law. 1932.
  • W. Luthardt: collective democracy, interest groups, plural interest mediation. In: K. Schubert (Ed.): Achievements and limits of political-economic theory. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1992, pp. 113–126.
  • Michael Wildt : The political order of the national community. Ernst Fraenkel's “ dual state ” re-examined. In: Mittelweg 36 . 12, 2003, pp. 45-61.