Description
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Arendtian Constitutionalism: Law Politics and the Order of Freedom 2015 by Christian Volk
What is politics? is an omnipresent question in Hannah Arendts work and one that is explored widely in countless publications. What is law? in contrast is a question which has not been of much interest to date and has been addressed only selectively; indeed the meaning and function of law in Hannah Arendts work has never been the subject of a systematic reconstruction. This therefore is the starting point for this study. The book proposes that the question of law is a core issue in Arendtian thinking. By means of a political-theoretical exegesis of her work and a legal-philosophical legal-theoretical and constitutional-theoretical reconstruction of Arendts ideas the author shows that Arendts engagement with law is continuous as well as crucial to an adequate understanding of her political thought. Christian Volk argues that Arendt was very much concerned with the question of an adequate arrangement of law politics and order – the so-called triad of constitutionalism – and considers suitable forms for the institutionalisation of conflict-ridden political action. By adopting this approach Volk suggests an alternative interpretation of Arendts thought which sees Arendt as neither the advocate of ancient political forms (Aristotelian communitarianism) nor as a subscriber to the discourse-theoretical or agonal reading of her thought. In Volks view Arendt is a thinker of political order who is concerned with and highlights the importance of a durable stable and free political order in which political struggle and dissent can happen and appear.