Peter Niesen: Countering Democratic Regression: Is Political Constitutionalism the Answer?

By Peter Niesen (Professor for Political Science with a focus on Political Theory at the University of Hamburg)

There is near consensus in political science that many Western democracies have declined in institutional quality in recent years, and that authoritarian populism has influenced constitutional developments in many states (Schäfer/Zürn 2024). Some democracies, Germany included, have reacted by fortifying legal institutions. They put their hopes in the mechanisms of legal constitutionalism: the entrenchment of individual rights, bans on authoritarian-leaning parties, and the control of parliamentary law-making through judicial review (Schupmann 2024). At the same time, for theorists of majoritarian democracy, it is precisely the liberal entrenchment of rights and the “over-constitutionalization” of legislative options that has fueled authoritarian populism (Manow 2024).

Lecture as part of the 2026 Annual Conference of the Research Program “Zeitenwenden. Normative Ordnungen im Umbruch?” (Turning Points. Normative Orders in Transition?) at the Research Centre Normative Orders at Goethe University Frankfurt, funded by Stiftungsfonds Commerzbank im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft e. V.

00:00 Introduction of the speaker
02:46 Lecture by Peter Niesen

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