TY - JOUR A1 - Fruhstorfer, Anna T1 - Constitutional revolutions under autocracy JF - Constitutional studies N2 - Gary Jacobsohn and Yaniv Roznai’s (2020) book Constitutional Revolution offers a sophisticated conceptual framework with a fascinating description of empirical occurrences of substantive revolutions in the practice and understanding of constitutionalism in Germany, India, Hungary, and Israel. While the conceptualization in the book and its empirical illustration clearly draw from regime transformations or substantive changes within democratic regimes, we know little about the extent to which substantive constitutional reforms are possible and meaningful in autocratic regimes. As their concept of constitutional revolution is ambiguous and requires a substantive engagement with an individual case at hand, we cannot sim- ply expect concept equivalence when expanding its use beyond a transitory or democratic context. Hence, in this contribution I ask, What constitutes a constitutional revolution in an autocratic regime? To shed light on this question, I rely on the expectation that we do not find important differences in the substance of autocratic constitutions compared to democratic constitutions. Autocratic elites, also, under- stand the possibilities of constitutional change and respond to them as they offer regime stability and simply more power, but that is not a revolution. Therefore, I argue that the substantive meaning of an amendment must be a departure from the inherent logic of the constitution, especially outside the standard procedures for autocratic ruling. Thus, in this paper I discuss the theoretical implications of a constitutional revolution under autocracy without a regime transition and provide empirical evidence from various constitutional amendments and de facto reforms in Russia. I show that a constitutional revolution is not always the most important or most discussed constitutional change—at least, not in an autocratic context. This discussion has important implications for understanding constitutionalism and autocratic stability and the largely overlooked relationship between substance and process in nondemocratic settings. KW - constitutional revolution KW - Russia KW - federalism KW - autocracy Y1 - 2021 UR - https://constitutionalstudies.wisc.edu/index.php/cs/article/view/69 SN - 2474-9427 SN - 2474-9419 VL - 7 IS - 1 SP - 33 EP - 47 PB - University of Wisconsin Press CY - Madison ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Baehrens, Konstantin T1 - Einleitung zu Georg Lukács BT - Warum sind Demokratien den Autokratien überlegen? und Das wirkliche Deutschland JF - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie N2 - Two short typescripts by G. Lukacs from the archive, dating from 1941/42, shed light on his appraisal of the cultural ‘inner reserves’ of Germany and the ‘moral reserves’ of the democracies involved in the Second World War, as well as on Lukacs’s political philosophy at that time. The conception of an intrinsic interrelation of a humanist philosophical anthropology and rationalist epistemology elucidates his egalitarian and democratic account. Both texts are located within the intellectual development of the author in an introduction by the editor, which sketches the historical background and indicates relevant contemporaneous theoretical and political debates, such as the controversies over realism and humanism and also a dispute with K. Jaspers on German collective guilt. KW - autocracy KW - collective guilt KW - democracy KW - German classic KW - German misery KW - humanism KW - Jaspers KW - Lukacs KW - Marxism KW - political philosophy KW - rationalism Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2015-0019 SN - 2192-1482 SN - 0012-1045 VL - 63 IS - 2 SP - 358 EP - 366 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Baehrens, Konstantin T1 - Introduction to Georg Lukacs: Why Democracies are superior to Autocracies? and The real Germany JF - Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie : Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung N2 - Two short typescripts by G. Lukacs from the archive, dating from 1941/42, shed light on his appraisal of the cultural 'inner reserves' of Germany and the 'moral reserves' of the democracies involved in the Second World War, as well as on Lukacs's political philosophy at that time. The conception of an intrinsic interrelation of a humanist philosophical anthropology and rationalist epistemology elucidates his egalitarian and democratic account. Both texts are located within the intellectual development of the author in an introduction by the editor, which sketches the historical background and indicates relevant contemporaneous theoretical and political debates, such as the controversies over realism and humanism and also a dispute with K. Jaspers on German collective guilt. KW - autocracy KW - collective guilt KW - democracy KW - German classic KW - German misery KW - humanism KW - Jaspers KW - Lukacs KW - Marxism KW - political philosophy KW - rationalism Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2015-0019 SN - 0012-1045 SN - 2192-1482 VL - 63 IS - 2 SP - 358 EP - 366 PB - De Gruyter CY - Berlin ER -