State|Society. New perspectives on a crisis-ridden relationship

Series of events

Project manager: Prof. Dr. Christoph Menke

Project description

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that the relationship between state and society is in crisis. The traditional form of political institutions, in particular the nation state, has largely lost its ability to function in Western societies. This applies not only to the political ability to regulate a globally integrating economy, but is also reflected in the fact that current political challenges – such as the so-called “refugee crisis” and climate change – go beyond the nation-state framework. This crisis of statehood also manifests itself as an erosion of democracy, as democratic self-determination and representation have so far been organized primarily in nation-state institutions. For example, the disintegration of the mainstream parties, the rise of right-wing nationalist and xenophobic populism, the dissolution of civil society and the loss of trust in democratic institutions are being diagnosed.

The project aims to build on these diagnoses of crisis. The initial thesis is that the aforementioned crisis phenomena point to a fundamental problem that concerns the modern concept of the state itself. This concerns the relationship between state and society, in which the concept of the state is first defined. This relationship constitutes its relations – outside of it there is neither state nor society – and in this it is both essentially unstable and crisis-ridden: it produces its two sides as two entities that become independent of each other and are therefore each in conflict with the other (and thus with the relationship that constitutes them).

One reaction to this crisis is to reject the state-society difference itself. This occurs, for example, in drafts for a constitution after the state: as a “dynamic understanding of the constitution” (Habermas), “horizontal constitutionalization” (Joerges) or as a “global constitution” (Fischer-Lescano). What they have in common is that they replace the organization of the social by the state with models of self-organization of the social. The project aims to discuss the consequences for the idea of political freedom of abandoning the state-society difference and thus withdrawing the state from society. The hypothesis here is that by isolating the political to the self-organizing and self-regulating forces of the social, it is no longer possible to answer how political freedom in its specific normativity – the ideas of generality, equality and solidarity – can achieve effectiveness in the social. It is precisely in order to be able to assert the normativity of the political in the social that we need to think about the difference between the political and the social. In order to substantiate this thesis, the project will in particular pose the question of the specific mode of existence and operation of society, which remains peculiarly unanalyzed in the crisis diagnoses mentioned at the beginning as well as in the relativizations of the state-society difference just mentioned. The difference of the political vis-à-vis the social – as formulated in the hypothesis – therefore goes hand in hand with the difference of the social vis-à-vis the political. Both differences must be considered together in their tension; they form the condition for the success of political freedom.

Events

Workshop
6.June 2019, 3 p.m.
“Politics in times of legitimacy crisis: why read Carl Schmitt today, and how?”
With Jean-François Kervégan (Université Paris, Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Workshop
11. July 2019, 4 p.m.
The private law discourse of modernity revisited
With Marietta Auer (Gießen)

Workshop
November 28, 2019, 3 p.m.
“The financial regime“
With Joseph Vogl (HU Berlin)