Abstract

Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde is today the major representative of the German tradition of the Staatslehre. His work is in line with democratic and social constitutionalism developed after II World War. Within this context, Böckenförde specifically claims the permanent necessity of a firm principle of political unity and its translation in the State form. He contests that the constitutional democratic doctrine can limit itself to record some kind of "ordered pluralism" on the level of the political and social frameworks, as well as that of the relationship among nation-States at the European level. From the specific viewpoint of the history of political thought, Böckenförde argues against the "historicity" of right proposed by Savigny's historical school, and its consequent formalism. He instead refers to the XIX century stream - the one of Hegel and Lorenz von Stein - which is more apt, according to Böckenförde, to favour the concrete understanding of the experience of right, and the relationship between State and society.