Legalist Assaults on democracy

A seminar by Ivan Ermakoff

February 15, 2022
14:00-16:30

Sciences Po, campus de Paris

Bilingual seminar online and in-person

The twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a type of anti-democratic challenges in which contenders for exclusive state power framed their power bids in a legalist fashion. The purpose of this presentation will be to analyze the modalities and the impact of this type of authoritarian challenges in light of a case that lays bare the logic of the processes at play with particular clarity: the National Socialists’ dismantling of democratic institutions in 1933.

Discussant: Claire ANDRIEU (Sciences Po, CHSP)

Ivan Ermakoff is Sewell-Bascom Professor of Sociology - affiliated with the Department of History and the Center for Jewish Studies - at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research agenda is centered on the dynamics of collective interactions, modes of governance and transition process in conflict-ridden conjunctures.

Suggested supplementary readings

• «Frail Democracy», in Militant Democracy, Political Science, law, and Philosophy, ed. by Afshin Ellian and Bastiaan Rijpkema (Springer 2018), pp. 47-60
• «Law against the Rule of Law: Assaulting Democracy», Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 47, n°1, Oct. 2020, pp. S164-S186
• «Preface», Ruling Oneself Out: A Theory of Collective Abdications (Duke University Press, 2008)

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