¹ Böckenförde received honorary doctorates from the Law Schools of the Universities of Basel (1987), Bielefeld (1999), and Münster (2001), as well as from the Faculties of Catholic Theology of Bochum University (1999), and Tübingen University (2005). He has also received the Reuchlin Award for outstanding work in the humanities (1978), the order of merit of the state of Baden-Württemberg (2003), the Guardini Award of the Catholic Academy in Bavaria for work in the field of the philosophy of religion (2004), the Hannah-Arendt Prize for Political Thought (2004), and the Sigmund Freud Prize for scholarly prose (2012).Google Scholar

² The Festschrifts are: Offene Staatlichkeit: Festschrift für Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde zum 65. Geburtstag (Rolf Grawert ed., 1995); Das Recht des Menschen in der Welt. Kolloquium aus Anlass des 70. Geburtstages von Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (Rainer Wahl & Joachim Wieland eds., 2002); Freiheit des Subjekts und Organisation von Herrschaft. Symposium zu Ehren von Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde anlässlich seines 75. Geburtstages, Der Staat, supplement 17 (Christoph Enders & Johannes Masing eds., 2006); Menschenwürde – Demokratie – Christliche Gerechtigkeit. Tagungsband zum Festlichen Kolloquium aus Anlass des 80. Geburtstags von Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (Johannes Masing & Joachim Wieland eds., 2011). The edited volumes are: Religion – Recht – Republik. Studien zu Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (Hermann-Josef Große Kracht & Klaus Große Kracht eds., 2014), Voraussetzungen und Garantien des Staates. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenfördes Staatsverständnis (Reinhard Mehring & Martin Otto eds., 2014). The monographs are: Norbert Manterfeld, Die Grenzen der Verfassung: Möglichkeiten limitierender Verfassungstheorie des Grundgesetzes am Beispiel E.-W. böckenfördes (2000); Johanna Falk, Freiheit als politisches Ziel. Grundmodelle liberalen Denkens bei Kant, Hayek und Böckenförde (2006); Jonas Philipp Pavelka, Bürger und Christ: politische Ethik und christliches Menschenbild bei Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (2015).Google Scholar

³ A 1991 edition with Berg Publishers presented eleven of his articles but was soon out of print. His only other English-language publication was a book co-edited with Edward Shils: Jews and Christians in a Pluralistic World (Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde & Edward Shils eds., 1991). Audiences working in languages other than English may be familiar with his work, as many of his writings have long been translated into French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. See the editions of collected articles, in chronological order: (1) in Korean: Constitution, State, Freedom (Bobmun SA 1992); (2) in Polish: Wolność-państwo-Kościółt [Freedom, State, Church] (Wydawnictwo Znak 1994); Państwo prawa w jednoczącej się Europie [The rule of law in a unifying Europe] (trans. P. Kaczorowski; Zbigniew Stawrowski ed., ISPPAN 2000); (3) in Japanese: The Modern State and Constitution, Freedom and Democracy (Fukosha 1999); (4) in French: Le Droit, l‘État et la Constitution démocratique. Essais de théorie juridique, politique et constitutionnelle (Olivier Jouanjan eds., Bruylant 2000); (5) in Italian: la storiografia constituzionale tedesca nel secolo decimonono costituzionale (trans. Pierangelo Schiera, Giuffrè 1970); Stato, costituzione, democrazia. Studi di teoria della costituzione e di diritto costituzionale (Giuffrè 2006); Cristianesimo, libertà, democrazia (Morcelliana, 2007); Diritto e secolarizzazione. Dallo Stato moderno all‘Europa unita (Editori Laterza 2007); (6) in Portuguese: Historia da filosofia do direito e do estado antiguidade e Idade Média, (Porto Alegre Fabris Ed. 2012); (7) in Spanish: Estudios sobre el Estado de Derecho y la democracia (trans. Rafael de Agapito Serrano, Trotta 2000). In addition to these collections, individual articles have been published in these languages as well as in Czech, Slovenian, and Swedish.Google Scholar

⁴ A handicap caused by an accident he suffered in his youth limited his mobility throughout his life.Google Scholar

⁵ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017); and Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 2 Law, Religion and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein, eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

⁶ Symposium, Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Inner-Catholic Critic and Advocate of Open Neutrality, 7 Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 1–123 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2018); Symposium, Democratic Pluralism, Social Cohesion and Individual Ethos in the Secularized State – the Political Thought of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 25 Constellations (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

⁷ See, for a more comprehensive approach of comparative constitutional studies as opposed to comparative constitutional law, Ran Hirschl, Comparative Matters. The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional law 15 (2016).Google Scholar

⁸ Ran Hirschl argues that there are three reasons why legal scholars should be open to social scientists' methods and findings: first, factors of extra-judicial nature such as the socio-cultural context and policy preferences are of crucial importance to understand patterns of constitutional court decision-making; second, despite the tendencies of convergence regarding constitutional texts (especially social rights) in the last decades, the variance in their realization is striking. Thus, in order to describe and explain variance and divergence, one can much benefit from evidence gathered in the social sciences; third, legal scholarship tends to lag behind the social sciences in terms of methodologies and could thus learn a good deal, particularly with regard to the still common conflation of description, taxonomy, normative and explanatory accounts. See Hirschl, Ran, From Comparative Constitutional Law to Comparative Constitutional Studies, 11 Journal of International Constitutional Law 1 (2013).Google Scholar

⁹ On this, see Künkler, Mirjam & Stein, Tine, State, law, and constitution: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's political and legal thought in context, in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 1–35 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The State as an Ethical State [1978], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 86, 88–9 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

¹¹ Id., at 89. On Böckenförde's notion of the state, see in more detail Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein, Böckenförde's Political Theory of the State, in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 38–54 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

¹² For a discussion of the Schmittian heritage in comparison to Heller's in Böckenförde's thought, see Künkler, Mirjam & Stein, Tine, Carl Schmitt in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's Work: Carrying Weimar constitutional theory into the Bonn Republic, 25 Constellations (forthcoming 2018); Olivier Jouanjan, Between Carl Schmitt, the Catholic Church, and Hermann Heller: On the Foundations of Democratic Theory in the Work of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 25 Constellations (forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

¹³ Bundesverfassungsgericht [Federal Constitutional Court] [BVerfG] Jan. 15, 1958, 7 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 198.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Protection of Liberty against Societal power. Outline of a problem [1975], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 290–98 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

¹⁵ This is a view Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had taken in the German Grundwertedebatte (debate on core values) of the late 1970s against much opposition from the Catholic bishops and others who called on the government to lead the way against an alleged erosion of values in society. Böckenförde, together with the Catholic intellectual Oswald von Nell-Breuning, served as the ghost writer for Chancellor Schmidt's decisive speeches on the matter.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Rise of The State as a Process of Secularization [1967], in 2 law, Religion, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Böckenförde tried repeatedly to invalidate that interpretation: what came to be known as the dictum “was in part understood to mean that only religion can guarantee a state-sustaining ethos and a relative homogeneity. But that is not so. I am talking about the lived, living culture; religious aspects flow into it, and it often has religious roots, though these can also wane and be overlaid with other things. I repeatedly tried to make this clear against many an attempt at appropriating my views.” Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Biographical Interview, in 2 Law, Religion, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, German Catholicism in 1933: A Critical Examination [1961], in 2 Law, Religion, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

¹⁹ On this, see Manent, Aline-Florence, Democracy and Religion in the Political and Legal Thought of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 7 Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 74–96 (2018).Google Scholar

²⁰ Dissenting opinion regarding party donations (joined by Judge Mahrenholz): Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG] [Federal Constitutional Court] July 14, 1986, 73 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 40, 103 et seq. The later majority decision was BVerfG, April 9, 1992, 85 BVerfGE 264, 314 et seq.Google Scholar

²¹ Dissenting opinion regarding limits on tax legislation: BVerfG, June 22, 1995, 93 BVerfGE 121, 149 et seq. The later majority decision was BVerfG, Jan. 18, 2006, 115 BVerfGE, 97 (2006).Google Scholar

²² Dissent, id. Google Scholar

²³ (1) Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Repressed of Emergency [1978], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 108–32 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017); (2) Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The State as an Ethical State [1978], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 86–107 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017); (3) Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Verhaltensgewähr oder Gesinnungstreue? Sicherung der freiheitlichen Demokratie in den Formen des Rechtstaats, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dec. 8, 1978, at 9–10; (4) Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Rechtsstaatliche politische Selbstverteidigung als Problem, in Extremisten und öffentlicher Dienst. Studie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 9–33 (Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Christian Tomuschat & Umbach, Dieter C. eds., 1981). (5) Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Ausnahmerecht und demokratischer Rechtsstaat, in Die Freiheit des Anderen. Festschrift für Martin Hirsch 259–72 (Hans-Jochen Vogel, Helmut Simon & Adalbert Podlech eds., 1981).Google Scholar

²⁴ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The State as an Ethical State [1978], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 86, 100 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

²⁵ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Rechtsstaatliche politische Selbstverteidigung als Problem, in Extremisten und öffentlicher Dienst. Studie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 9–33 (Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Christian Tomuschat & Umbach, Dieter C. eds., 1981).Google Scholar

²⁶ Shylashri Shankar, The State of Emergency in India, in this issue.Google Scholar

²⁷ Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein, Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde: Inner-Catholic Critic and Advocate of Open Neutrality, 7 Oxford Journal of Law and Religion 1 (2018). On Böckenförde's biography, see Künkler, Mirjam & Stein, Tine, State, law, and constitution: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's political and legal thought in context, in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 1 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

²⁸ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Ethos of Modern Democracy and the Church [1957], in 2 law, Religion, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

²⁹ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, German Catholicism in 1933 [1961], in 2 law, Religion, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018). Also published in 11 Crosscurrents 283–304 (1961).Google Scholar

³⁰ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Rise of the State as a Process of Secularization [1967], in 2 law, Religion, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

³¹ On this, see Müller, Jan-Werner, What the Dictum Really Meant—and What It Could Mean for Us, 25 Constellations (forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

³² Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Das Grundrecht der Gewissensfreiheit, 28 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer [VVDStRL] 33, 37 (1970), translated as Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Basic Right of Freedom of Conscience, in 2 Religion, law, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

³³ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Rise of The State as a Process of Secularization [1967], in 2 Religion, Law, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

³⁴ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Bekenntnisfreiheit in einer pluralen Gesellschaft und die Neutralitätspflicht des Staates, in Kirche und Christlicher Glaube in den Herausforderungen der Zeit 439, 442 (2nd ed. 2003).Google Scholar

³⁵ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Which Path is Europe Taking? [1997], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory. Selected Writings 343 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017). Together with constitutional scholar Dieter Grimm (who focuses mainly on conceptual issues pertaining to the connection between constitution and state) and political scientist Peter Graf Kielmansegg (who addresses, in particular, issues of democratic legitimacy), Böckenförde represents a rather skeptical stance on the future of European integration.Google Scholar

³⁶ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, The Future of Political Autonomy: Democracy and Statehood in a Time of Globalization and Europeanization, and Individualization [1998], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 325 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

³⁷ Id. at 335.Google Scholar

³⁸ Value conservatism is commonly opposed to structural conservatism. While the latter supports the change that comes with modern capitalist production and consumption, the former criticizes the negative impacts on social cohesion and traditional life forms.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Which Path is Europe Taking? [1997], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory. Selected Writings 343, 351 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Id. See for Böckenförde's argumentation, Vlad Perju, Reflections on Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's Work on European Integration, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Which Path is Europe Taking? [1997], in 1 Constitutional and Political Theory. Selected Writings 343, 364 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017).Google Scholar

⁴² In a 2015 interview, Böckenförde laments that the type of nation-centered thinking present in many member states obstructs the necessary joint action. Thus, he goes on, he unfortunately cannot share Angela Merkel's optimism in this regard. See Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang: Anwalt des Parlaments, Badische Zeitung, Sept. 19, 2015.Google Scholar

⁴³ Perju, supra note 40.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde: Kennt die Europäische Not kein Gebot?, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (June 21, 2010), https://www.nzz.ch/kennt_die_europaeische_not_kein_gebot-1.6182412.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Jan Christoph Suntrup, From Emergency Politics to Authoritarian Constitutionalism? The Legal and Political Costs of EU Financial Crisis Management, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Id. Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Böckenförde, supra note 44 (transl. by Jan Christoph Suntrup).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Alexander Somek, The European Model of Transnational Democracy, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Id. Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Id. (emphasis in the original).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Andreas Wimmer & Nina Glick Schiller, Methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-state building, migration and the social sciences, 2 Global Networks 301 (2002); Andreas Wimmer & Nina Glick Schiller, Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology, 37 Int'l Migration Rev. 576 (2003). See also Beck, Ulrich & Grande, Edgar, Jenseits des methodologischen Nationalismus. Auβereuropäische und europäische Variationen der Zweiten Moderne, 61 Soziale Welt 187 (2010).Google Scholar

⁵² Evelyne Huber et al., Introduction. Transformations of the State, in Oxford Handbook on Transformations on the State 1, 1 (Stephan Leibfried et al. eds., 2015).Google Scholar

⁵³ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Demokratie als Verfassungsprinzip, in Staat, Verfassung, Demokratie: Studien zur Verfassungstheorie und zum Verfassungsrecht 348 (1991).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Alexander Somek, The European Model of Transnational Democracy, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Dieter Gosewinkel, “Beim Staat geht es nicht allein um Macht, sondern um die staatliche Ordnung als Freiheitsordnung.” Biographisches Interview mit Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Wissenschaft, Politik, Verfassungsgericht 307, 477 (2011); English trans. quoted after Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein, State, law, and constitution: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde's political and legal thought in context, in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 1 Constitutional and Political Theory: Selected Writings 23 (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., 2017). Other excerpts of the interview are contained id. at 369, and in Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, 2 Religion, Law, and Democracy: Selected Writings (Mirjam Künkler & Tine Stein eds., forthcoming 2018).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ What Daniel Zieblatt and Steve Levitsky recently diagnosed as a breakdown of forbearance in US politics certainly also applies to other contemporary polities. Society was so polarized, the authors suggest, and political parties so distrustful of one another that politicians no longer showed self-restrain. Instead, one used all tools at one's disposal to weaken the other party. Citing polling data, the authors give examples indicative of how intra-societal trust has broken down in the US context: One out of four Trump voters deemed Trump to be unfit for president—yet preferred to vote for him rather than Hilary Clinton. A majority of Trump voters saw Vladimir Putin more favorably than the Democratic Party candidate. See Zieblat, Daniel & Levitsky, Steve, The Breakdown of Democracy (2018).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, “Freiheit ist ansteckend,” taz. die Tageszeitung, Sept. 23, 2009, at 4 (trans. the authors).Google Scholar