Populist Constitutionalism: A Contradiction in Terms?

Jan-Werner Müller is Professor of Politics at the Department of Politics, Princeton University. His research interests include the history of modern political thought, liberalism and its critics, constitutionalism, religion and politics, and the normative dimensions of European integration.

This discussion takes place within the colloquium series "Rethinking Law in a Global Context" that this summer semester focuses on "Law‘s Conception of Politics and Political Conceptions of Law".

The distinction between law and politics is central to modernity. Law and politics refer to each other and are structurally connected. But how exactly are they interconnected? Is law the result of political decision? Is politics, even the exercise of constituant power, legally constrained? To what extent is politics constituted by law? Which conception of the political is connected to the liberal- democratic constitutional state?

For details, please see http://www.wzb.eu/berlin-colloquium