What is Militant Democracy?
Karl Loewenstein was a political scientist who fled the Nazis in 1933, and came to America. He specialized in the study and comparison of constitutions.
Loewenstein believed that a true constitution is one that contains basic guarantees AND establishes the organization of the underlying political institutions: it also assumes the values of liberal democracy: finally, it reflects cultural and historical reality of the society it is created for.
In 1937, Loewenstein wrote Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights (I & II) for The American Political Science Review. These two articles laid the basis for the concept of militant democracy.
In these articles, Loewenstein explained how totalitarian parties were able to take control over democratic countries using democratic means.
A survey of the legislative defenses of the Republic against the enemies of the democratic order reveals an almost tragicomical picture of half-hearted, laggard,and thoroughly ineffective methods of dealing with the subversive technique.
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
goes on to say
that a political technique can be defeated only on its own plane and by its own devices
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
Loewenstein focus on militant democracy as a response to fascism primarily, although he cites it's uses against leftism in Finland and Estonia. We will need to look beyond fascism, and indeed past political tyranny to understand how militant democracy can provide an ideological basis for a legal response to subversive threats against constitutional government.
Principles of Militant Democracy
On defining authoritarian overnment -
Dictatorship,on the other hand, means the substitution for the rule of law of legalized opportunism in the guise of the raison d'etat.By the fusing of private law completely in to public law,no trace of individual rights and of the rule of law is left
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
these states are authoritarian to the extent that the group in power controls public opinion as well as the machinery of government
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
such government is a supersession of constitutional government by emotional government
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
Fascism is not an Ideology but a Political Technique...the most effective political technique in modern history
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
This last assertion is interesting when we discuss militant democracy as a response to leftism, as well as keeping in mind that authoritarian states are emotionally driven, according to Loewenstein
On defining constitutional government -
Constitutional government signifies the rule of law, which guarantees rationality and calculability of administration while preserving a definite sphere of private law and fundamental rights
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
Democracy is utterly incapable of meeting an emotional attack by an emotional counter-attack. Constitutional government, by its very nature,can appeal only to reason
The very image of leftist..."reason"
The misuse of
the possibility that a democratic regime might effectively overthrow itself, if the demos as a whole, or a sufficiently
large part of it, were to turn against the democratic principle itself. This is sometimes referred to as the “paradox of democracy,”
(Accetti & Zuckerman)
Which groups should be seen as threats under the Militant Democracy concept: Looking beyond facism
Democracy was unable to forbid the enemies of its very existence the use of democratic instrumentalities
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
Who are these enemies?
- Leftists
- Jihadists
- Organized Crime
- Organized racist groups, if and when they advocate violence or overthrow of state
They exploit the tolerant confidence of democratic ideology that in the long run truth is stronger than falsehood,that the spirit asserts itself against force
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
No spiritual movement can, in the long run,be suppressed merely by legislative and administrative measures.
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
He claims that socialism is an idea at this point, but I would agrue with that.
Application of informationwar
The technicaldevices formobilizingemotionalismare ingenious
and ofamazingvarietyand efficacy, althoughrecentlybecoming
moreand morestandardized
(Loewenstein, 1937a)
References
Loewenstein, K. (1937). Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, I. The American Political Science Review, 31(3), 417. https://doi.org/10.2307/1948164
Apologies
I've been at this all day - going to run with this and update it later on. I just absolutely ran out of juice