European Centre for Art, Culture and Science

Thursday October 13 2011 / Citizenship

Constitutional State Lecture: The democratic constitutional state, an insecure possession?

Does populism offer the democratic constitutional state an opportunity or does it pose a threat? Is criticism of the (im)partiality of the judicial apparatus justified? As a run-up to the Night of the Constitutional State, the philosopher of law René Foqué will tackle these questions in the Constitutional State lecture.


Picture: Rebke Klokke

René Foqué will focus on the much-discussed relation between democracy and the constitutional state, about which there are misunderstandings and differences of opinion. Thinkers such as Montesquieu have demonstrated their scepticism vis-à-vis the importance of democracy, while today's populists are very critical of the institutions and representatives of the constitutional state. Both approaches, however, according to Foqué, are based on a problematic picture of what democracy entails, with the concomitant results. Above all the populist view can lead to a form of totalitarian democracy, which is fatal to the institutional equilibrium of the constitutional state. Democracy and the constitutional state are not rivals, Foqué argues, but are two sides of the same coin.

René Foqué (1946) is Professor of the Philosophy and Theory of Law at the Catholic University Louvain and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He also teaches at the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization in Venice. He is a correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW).

Foqué's lecture will be commented on by Andreas Kinneging, Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the University of Leiden, co-founder of the conservative think-tank Edmund Burke Foundation, and author of Geografie van goed en kwaad (Geography of good and evil) among other works and by Rinus Otte (vice-president of the Arnhem Court of Appeal and professor at the University of Groningen).

Moderator: Max van Weezel.

This lecture is organised by FORUM and Felix Meritis in anticipation of the Night of the Constitutional State, which will be held on 25 November.

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Constitutional State Lecture by René Foqué - 13 October 2011