Crisis of democracy: Rule of law and Rule by law

Lecture by Prof. Klaus Günther (Goethe University, Normative Orders)

Commentators Prof Michael Wilkinson (London School of Economics) and Dr María Emilia Barreyro (Goethe University, Normative Orders) within the Lecture Series on “Rule of Law and Democracy” on March 19th 2021 at the Research Centre Normative Orders of Goethe University.

The crisis of democracy we face today triggers many questions about the very concept of democracy as well as its interaction with other political ideals.

Some of those who embody this crisis claim to speak in the name of the people and contradict, at the same time, the most basic democratic institutions of Constitutional states. That pushes us to look at one highly contested issue, which is the relation between democracy and the rule of law ideal. Are they based on contradictory principles, and united, paradoxically, in Constitutional Democracies – as Habermas has pointed it out? Are they completely independent one from another – as some other scholars believe? Does it make sense to talk about a democratic rule of law ideal?

The Lecture Series on Rule of Law and Democracy attempts to address this issue from a multidisciplinary perspective. History, Philosophy of Law and Political Philosophy are here brought together to enrich and shed different lights on this old debate that revives once again.

Organized by Dr. María Emilia Barreyro (Postdoctoral Fellow at Normative Orders), Dr. Sofie Møller (Postdoctoral Fellow at Normative Orders) and Carlos Gálvez-Bermúdez (PhD student at Normative Orders)