Hegel and the Representative Constitution

Provides the first comprehensive historical discussion of the institutional dimension of G. W .F. Hegel's political thought.

Elias Buchetmann (Author)

9781009305969, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 April 2023

320 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

Hegel and the Representative Constitution provides the first comprehensive historical discussion of the institutional dimension of G. W. F. Hegel's political thought. Elias Buchetmann traces this much-neglected aspect in unprecedented contextual detail and makes the case for reading the Philosophy of Right from 1820 as a contribution to the lively and widespread public debate on the constitutional question in contemporary Central Europe. Drawing on a broad range of primary source material, this volume illuminates the wider political discourse in post-Napoleonic Germany, carefully locates Hegel's institutional commitments within their immediate cultural and political context, and reveals him as something closer to a public intellectual. By exploring this indispensable thinker's demand for the constitutional protection of popular participation in government, it contributes beyond Hegel scholarship to shed new light on the history of democratic theory in early nineteenth-century Europe and encourages critical reflection on questions of representation today.

Introduction: humanising Hegel
1. The constitutional question in post-Napoleonic Germany
2. On the nature of constitutions
3. The distribution of power
4. Debating the two-chamber system
5. The representation of interests
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Social & cultural history [HBTB], History: theory & methods [HBA]