englischThis volume examines Arnold Gehlen’s theory of the state from his philosophy of the state in the 1920s via his political and cultural anthropology to his impressive critique of the post-war welfare state. The systematic analyses the book contains by leading scholars in the social sciences [...]

englischThis volume responds to the growing interest in Richard Rorty as a political thinker and critic of the academic left. It introduces Rorty's understanding of politics and democracy and shows his relevance for current debates in the context of the erosion of liberal democracy.

Rorty opens up a [...]

englischFriedrich Schiller, the grand master of the classical aesthetic of autonomy, was also a political thinker. In the 1790s, reading Immanuel Kant upset him, as did the French Revolution: abuse of power, political resistance, conspiracy and tyrannicide are just a few of the genuinely political [...]

englischFor Dieter Grimm, the constitution that emerged from the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries appears as one of the greatest achievements of our time. Originally geared to the liberal state, it now faces challenges from within and without. The party state and the welfare [...]

englischAccording to the New York Times, Noam Chomsky is the most important intellectual of our time. He has not only revolutionised the theories of language and the human mind, but his concept of human nature has prompted him to fight for freedom and democracy and led to political analyses which [...]

englischCarl Schmitt emphasised the crucial importance of the friend–enemy dichotomy for the political sphere. Is the connection between the concept of the enemy and politics still relevant today? Or does the political sphere need to be defined quite differently, on the one hand, and does the [...]

englischThe relationship between the state and civil society can be characterised as complex, disharmonious and dynamic. The complexity results from the historical conditions of its origin and the different ways of thinking, grasping and structuring the relationship. The relationship is [...]

englischThis anthology discusses Jacques Rancière’s political thinking from the perspective of political theory. It particularly focuses on the relationship between democracy, governance and statehood. The first contributions discuss key theoretical concepts in Rancière’s thinking, which is then [...]

englischIs populism “the ideology of democracy” (Margaret Canovan), a danger to democracy that entails “a claim to exclusive moral representation” (Jan-Werner Müller), or rather a “series of discursive resources which can be put to very different uses” (Ernesto Laclau)?

This is the first [...]

englischIn these times of globalisation and the denationalisation and questioning of state sovereignty, the question of the legitimacy of the state has become particularly explosive. If power is to be transformed into justified rule through the concept of legitimacy, legitimacy as such requires [...]