Constitutions in Crisis Political Violence and the Rule of Law

by Finn, John E.

• ISBN13: 9780195057386
• ISBN10: 0195057384
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1990-12-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In this compelling study, which unites the fields of constitutional theory and comparative politics, John E. Finn examines how the efforts of two western liberal democracies, the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany, to cope with domestic terrorism threatens their constitutional integrity. Finn argues first that widespread political violence challenges the presuppositions of constitutional authority in any liberal democracy, namely that reason and deliberation, and not passion or will, can be the basis of political community. Terrorism therefore constitutes both a specific type of constitutional emergency and a challenge to the more general enterprise of constitutional maintenance. He then proceeds to review the efforts of the United Kingdom and Germany to control political violence through emergency legislation, and considers to what extent such measures comport with the demands of constitutionalism and the rule of law.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
Constitutional Maintenance and the Legal Control of Political Violence	p. 11
A Theory of Constitutional Maintenance and Constitutional Crises	p. 13
Afterword: Constitutive Principles and Right Answers	p. 44
Constitutional Maintenance and Dissolution in Northern Ireland	p. 47
Constitutional Dissolution and Reconstruction in Northern Ireland	p. 51
Political Violence and Antiterrorism Legislation in Great Britain and Northern Ireland	p. 84
Constitutional Maintenance and Reconstruction in Germany	p. 135
Constitutional Dissolution in the Weimar Republic	p. 139
Constitutional Reconstruction, Militant Democracy, and Antiterrorism Legislation in the Federal Republic of Germany	p. 179
Conclusion	p. 219
Notes	p. 222
Selected References	p. 255
Index	p. 265
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