Georg Zenkert, Heidelberg: Der Nationalstaat und seine Verfassung

Abstract: In recent decades, the concept of „nation“ has received a rather sceptical resonance. Although highly successful in a historical sense, the modeling of the state in the shape of a nation seems to have become obsolete. The liberal tradition of political theory tends to cancel the nation-state in a global republic. The question, however, is not how to realize universal standards but rather what is an appropriate understanding of a political constitution, which is not only a set of abstract norms but also a constellation of powers. The decisive point is that power cannot be reduced to authority. Power refers, on the one hand, to the ability to act that manifests itself as competence in the social dimension, and on the other hand to the focus of the constituting power, the subject of integrative sovereignty. This analysis of political constitution enables us to understand the problem to which the very idea of the nation was the answer.

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