Reason of state

The concept of political expediency [ ʃtaːtsrɛzõː ] (also reasons of state ) means the pursuit of security and self-assertion of the state by any means. According to Wolfgang Kersting , it represents a “ranking rule for conflicts of interests and rights”. This mostly refers to the classic triad “voluntas, necessitas and utilitas” ( “will, necessity, usefulness” ) as the legitimation parameters of state actions.

In this sense, the raison d'être is a rational calculation of the interests of a government , regardless of the form of government, and is solely committed to maintaining the functioning of the state.

Different definitions

The lexicon of politics defines the term “raison d'état” as a “ basic principle of orientation and action that was first brought up in the Italian Renaissance (especially Machiavelli ) and that preserves the state or state authority and / or even increases it declared to be the decisive political maxim. [...] "

Alternatively, the Politics Dictionary offers three different definitions of reason of state:

First of all, raison d'etat is interpreted as "primacy of state interests over all other interests",
a second definition sees reasons of state as "state necessity, in contrast to individual reason and necessity".
A third distinction recognizes in it a "principle, according to which the highest standard of state action is the preservation and increase of the benefits of the state, also accepting the violation of moral and legal norms".

The Florentine state thinker Niccolò Machiavelli is undisputedly the most important advocate of the idea of the raison d'être. This, however, encapsulates the strategy of maintaining power, which is considered to be arcane knowledge , by making use of the not entirely unambiguous construction of the term mantenere lo stato - i.e. speaking of the maintenance of the state (also the state of rule / government). In contrast, his compatriot Giovanni Botero went down in history around 60 years after Machiavelli's death as the intellectual originator of the concept of raison d'etat. In his epochal work Della Ragion di Stato 1589, Botero was the first to attempt to define what is to be understood by reason of state in the sense of the contemporary ragion di stato . Botero describes the state as a "permanent rule over a people" and the raison d'être as "knowledge of the means that are necessary to establish, maintain and expand this rule."

The idea of reasons of state is not directly opposed to the philosophy of the German Basic Law , which grants people and only them a primary and inviolable legal status and only sees a need for regulation where there are conflicts of interest between people. The state itself is granted a legal status that is equal to or even superior to a person. The idea of raison d'etat, however, sees the state as at least equal to, if not superior to, a person, so that, according to this philosophy, in the event of a conflict, decisions can be made that favor the abstract state, but disadvantage concrete people. In the words of the constitutional lawyer Helmut Rumpf : "In the liberal and natural-legal tradition of thinking, the idea of reason of state stands in opposition to the idea of the law and the rule of law , reason of state and rule of law are hostile political concepts”.

The term reason of state , also called ratio status , ragione di stato , raison d'état or reason of state , has become a synonym for a doctrine of political wisdom , a strategy of prudenter loco et tempore (“with a practical understanding of place and time”) .

In Germany, the concept of raison d'etat was only introduced into political discourse after the end of the Thirty Years War . He took into account the fact that the individual German princes now ruled absolutistically in imitation of the French Sun King Louis XIV , recognized the emperor only formally and decided all religious and moral questions themselves. Joseph von Eichendorff writes that “the so-called 'Staatsraison', a diplomatic chess game of veiled intentions”, “took the place of Christian morality in politics”. He introduces Duke Anton Ulrich von Braunschweig (1633–1714) as the literary protagonist of the raison d'être: The Duke, who forcibly conquered Braunschweig and then changed faith for the purpose of acquiring Cologne, wrote voluminous historical novels in which the “court riddles” of the Braunschweig diplomacy was represented in allegorical code.

literature

Hans-Christian Crueger: The reasons of state for foreign policy in the Federal Republic of Germany: Theoretical foundations and political science discourse . Duncker & Humblot; 1st edition 2012, ISBN 978-3428137855 . (Dissertation, also "Contributions to Political Science, Volume 171")
Klaus Dieter Wolf : Reason of State in the Federal Republic of Germany . in: Kurt Graulich ; Dieter Simon (Ed.): Terrorism and the rule of law - analyzes, options for action, perspectives, Berlin 2007, Akademie Verlag, ISBN 978-3-05-004306-7
Herfried Münkler : On behalf of the state. The Justification of the Reason of State in the Early Modern Age . Frankfurt (Main) 1987.
Herfried Münkler: reasons of state and political wisdom . In: Iring Fetscher / Herfried Münkler (ed.): Piper's handbook of political ideas. Volume 3, Munich and Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-492-02953-1
Wolfgang Kersting : Niccolò Machiavelli . Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-406-54128-5
Maurizio Viroli: From politics to reason of state: the acquisition and transformation of the language of politics, 1250-1600 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York 1992, ISBN 0-521-41493-8
Roman Schnur (Ed.): Staatsräson. Studies on the History of a Political Concept . Berlin 1975.
Friedrich Meinecke : The idea of the raison d'être in modern history . 1924. (Ed. And introduced by Walther Hofer . Friedrich Meinecke Werke; Volume 1. Munich, R. Oldenbourg, 1957.)
Carl Joachim Friedrich : The raison d'être in the constitutional state . Freiburg 1961.
Peter Nitschke : reasons of state versus utopia. From Thomas Müntzer to Friedrich II of Prussia . Stuttgart / Weimar 1995.
Dieter Nohlen (ed.): Small lexicon of politics . Beck, Munich 2007. ISBN 978-3-406-51062-5
Nicolas Stockhammer: The principle of power. The rationality of political power in Thucydides , Machiavelli, and Michel Foucault . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-2801-8
Stefanie Kristina Werner: Staatsräson, in: Picture handbook for political iconography, ed. by Martin Warnke, Munich 2011. ISBN 978-3-406-57765-9

media

Conversation with Dick Marty : "Dick Marty, what is the point of irrational reasons of state?" From the SF series "Sternstunde Philosophie" / first broadcast on June 15, 2008 (notice on Swiss television)
Erich Mühsam : reason of state. A monument to Sacco and Vanzetti. Drama in 15 acts.

Web links

Wiktionary: reasons of state - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Literature on the subject of raison d'etat in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Kleines Lexikon der Politik , Art. “Staatsräson”, Beck, Munich 2007.
↑ Helmut Rumpf: The reason of state in the democratic constitutional state , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 1980
↑ Joseph von Eichendorff: The German novel of the 18th century in its relationship to Christianity , Paderborn, Schöningh, 2nd edition 1866, p. 52.
↑ FAZ: Review (January 2, 2013)

[1] Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Kleines Lexikon der Politik , Art. “Staatsräson”, Beck, Munich 2007.

[2] Helmut Rumpf: The reason of state in the democratic constitutional state , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 1980

[3] Joseph von Eichendorff: The German novel of the 18th century in its relationship to Christianity , Paderborn, Schöningh, 2nd edition 1866, p. 52.

[4] FAZ: Review (January 2, 2013)