The Great Gamble of the Liberal State

Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 52 (1):96-108 (2023)
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Abstract

The Great Gamble of the Liberal State: Fragility, Motivational Weakness and Political Regress Böckenförde’s famous Dictum plays an important role in Johan van der Walt’s The Concept of Liberal Democratic Law and functions as the implicit frame of reference for his analysis of the works of Rawls and Habermas. Van der Walt sees a ‘parallel constituent/constituted-power problematic’ at work in the writings of both authors; a problematic relation between public ethos and the institutions of a liberal state. Although I agree with Van der Walt that it is crucial to critically reflect on the question what can sustain the ‘we’ at work in liberal democratic ethics, I will argue (1) that his reading of the work of Böckenförde and Habermas is one-sided and misrepresentative, and (2) that this misrepresentation partially explains why Van der Walt does not provide us with a convincing response to Böckenförde’s Dictum.

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