Abstract
Redefinition of post-war Europe’s political space after the Second World War has reshaped traditional constitutional cultures. Cau’s article recalls comparatively the “constitutional transitions” that Italy and Germany went through after the totalitarian experiences focusing on the examination of theoretical models that legal science has used to rethink the State and to lay new foundations for the political pact. Particular attention is given to the role of generations in the evolution of legal culture: In both countries, constitutional theory has been characterized by the competition of different theoretical models, by a non-linear path and by a complex twist of continuities and breaks toward past legal tradition.
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- 1.
Benjamin, Walter. Sul concetto di storia, ed. by Gianfranco Bonola/Michele Ranchetti. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997, 86.
- 2.
Orlando, Vittorio Emanuele. Discorsi parlamentari, ed. by Fabio Grassi, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002, 681–683. On Orlando’s role at the Costituente see Pombeni, Paolo. Vittorio Emanuele Orlando: il costituente, in Vittorio Emanuele Orlando: lo scienziato, il politico e lo statista. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003, 33 f.; Quaglioni, Diego. “Ordine giuridico e politico in Vittorio Emanuele Orlando.” Carta, Paolo/Cortese, Fulvio, eds. Ordine giuridico e politico: esperienze lessico prospettive. Padua: Cedam, 2008, 3–25.
- 3.
A clarification is nece ssary: The examination of the German case is limited to the experience of the Federal Republic because of the profound differences that the political, constitutional and doctrinal developments had in the two states, which rose from the ashes of Hitler’s Germany. The FRG and the GDR gave rise to two very different systems of public law oriented toward the pursuit of antithetical political goals and resting on premises that were incompatible. The history of constitutional culture in the two Germanies is therefore a history of radically parallel experiences, the details of which cannot be discussed here. The focus therefore falls solely on the West-German experience, the most directly comparable to the Italian case.
- 4.
Grossi, Paolo. Scienza giuridica italiana. Un profilo storico 1860–1950. Milan: Giuffrè, 2000, 289.
- 5.
Petri, Rolf. “Transizione.” 900. Per una storia del tempo presente 12 (2005), 11.
- 6.
On the relationship between continuity and durability of the lines of change, see Lepsius , Mario Rainer. “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland in der Kontinuität und Diskontinuität historischer Entwicklungen: Einige methodische Überlegungen.” Conze, Werner/Lepsius, Mario Rainer, eds. Sozialgeschichte in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Beiträge zum Kontinuitätsproblem. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983, 16 ff.
- 7.
Stolleis, Michael. Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, vol. IV. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2012, 25; see also Rückert, Joachim. “Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten in der juristischen Methodendiskussion.” Acham, Karl/Nörr, Knut Wolfgang/Schefold, Bertram, eds. Erkenntnisgewinne, Erkenntnisverluste. Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten in den Wirtschafts-, Rechts- und Sozialwissenschaften zwischen den 20er und 50er Jahren. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998, 128–155.
- 8.
The opening up of German political science to the Anglo-Saxon tradition and the efforts of Hannah Arendt to redefine the foundations of political action are two emblematic examples of this attitude.
- 9.
Portinaro, Pier Paolo. “Una disciplina al tramonto? La Staatslehre da Georg Jellinek all’unificazione europea.” Teoria politica 1 (2005), 19.
- 10.
For a deeper examination of the general trends of post-war Staatslehre and the biographical profiles of the main figures of the science of constitutional law of the period, refer to Günther , Frieder. Denken vom Staat her. Die bundesdeutsche Staatsrechtslehre zwischen Dezision und Integration 1949–1970. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2004, 112–211; Stolleis , Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts, vol. IV, 115–145; Bülow , Birgit von. Die Staatsrechtslehre der Nachkriegszeit (1945–1952). Berlin: Berlin-Verl. Spitz, 1996; Möllers , Christoph. Der vermisste Leviathan. Staatstheorie in der Bundesrepublik. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2008.
- 11.
Thoma, Richard. “Vorwort.” Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer. 1950, 8.
- 12.
Möllers. Der vermisste Leviathan, 31.
- 13.
On the line of continuity between the thought of the early twentieth century, the Weimar Staatslehre and the juridical culture of the Federal Republic, see Schefold , Bertram. “Geisteswissenschaft und Staatsrechtslehre zwischen Weimar und Bonn.” In Acham/Norr/Schefold, eds. Erkenntnisgewinne, Erkenntnisverluste, 566 f.
- 14.
Five different schools of thought can be recognized firing the debate on the Weimar Republic: (1) the classical positivist line of thought represented by eminent scholars, although not always sharing the same methodological positions (such as Thoma, Anschütz, Preuss, Triepel and Radbruch) and by the supporters of normativism of the Viennese school of Kelsen; (2) the anti-positivist field with the doctrines of Carl Schmitt (characterised by decision-maker traits) and of Rudolf Smend (who adopted the methodology in the humanities with the support of jurists such as Kaufmann, Holstein and Leibholz); and (3) the Staatslehre of Heller (favorable toward the integration between juridical thought and sociological methods). The literature on this subject is vast; thus, for a general overview, see Stolleis , Michael. Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts, vol. III. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2002.
- 15.
As pointed out by Frieder Günther , for the Staatslehre “the fifties were not a decade of exciting modernization, but a period of retreat with little inclination to innovation and largely conservative”; Günther, Frieder. “Ein Jahrzehnt der Rückbesinnung. Die bundesdeutsche Staatsrechtslehre zwischen Dezision und Integration in den Fünfziger Jahren.” In Henne, Thomas/Riedlinger, Arne, eds. Das Urteil Lüth aus (rechts-) historischer Sicht. Die Konflikte um Veit Harlan und die Grundrechtsjudikatur des Bundesverfassungsgerichts. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2005, 305.
- 16.
For a detailed examination of the composition of the two groups and of the different doctrines, please refer to Günther . Denken vom Staat her, 112–190 and Schefold , Geisteswissenschaft und Staatsrechtslehre, 581–599.
- 17.
On the “rupture in continuity” occurring within Smend ’s school of thought and on the gradual abandoning of the statist horizon see Günther , Frieder. “Ein Jahrzehnt der Rückbesinnung.” In Henne/Riedlinger, eds. Das Urteil Lüth, 308–310. Among the key figures who promoted the shift of the Integrationslehre toward a more responsive answer to Republican issues, Gerhard Leibholz played a major role. His first reflections in the Weimar period on representation as the foundation of political forms also revealed a certain degree of diffidence, if not a clear disinclination, toward the paradigms of the Republican model; see Schefold , Geisteswissenschaft und Staatsrechtslehre, 575–580.
- 18.
See ibid., 585–590.
- 19.
Both cases were orientated toward a conservative line of thought that did not hide an open hostility toward the democratic republican option. It is significant that, during the years of the reintroduction of democracy in Germany, the theoretical choices in the Weimar period sided more openly in defence of democracy (therefore Kelsen’s and Heller’s school of thought), remained on the edges of the constitutional and juridical debate while it was actually the model of Smend ’s Integrationslehre—put together in the 1920s and based on anti-liberal and anti-democratic prejudices—that was elevated to be at the core of the new democratic State.
- 20.
For an in-depth understanding of Heller’s doctrine produced by the relational study between historical materialism, philosophical anthropology and cultural sciences, see Henkel , Michael. Hermann Hellers Theorie der Politik und des Staates. Die Geburt der Politikwissenschaft aus dem Geiste der Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011; Llanque, Marcus, ed. Souveräne Demokratie und soziale Homogenität. Das politische Denken Hermann Hellers. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010.
- 21.
Among the post-war “heirs” of Heller ’s Staatslehre it is worth remembering scholars of major relevance such as Martin Drath , former assistant lecturer in Frankfurt of Heller himself, who exerted a great influence on the first Senate of the Bundesverfassungsgericht from 1951. Also, the line of thought of Wolfgang Abendroth , who at the beginning of the 1950s left constitutional science for political science, moved closer to Heller’s position.
- 22.
On the cultural context in which the new constitution was implemented, see Bartole , Sergio. Interpretazioni e trasformazioni della Costituzione repubblicana. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004, 41 ff.
- 23.
Orlando, Discorsi parlamentari, 667.
- 24.
Fioravanti stressed that “the presence of the tradition of constitutional law science, and more specifically, the presence of those traditional jurists formed during the liberal period, did not end at all during the Fascis t period. After the fall of the regime, leading figures such as Santi Romano , and especially Vittorio Emanuele Orlando , tried to influence and to determine the constitutional and juridical trend and somehow to interpret the events leading to the establishment of the new political system and a new constitution”; Fioravanti, Maurizio. “Dottrina dello Stato-persona e dottrina della Costituzione. Costantino Mortati e la tradizione giuspubblicistica italiana.” Galizia, Mario/Grossi, Paolo, eds. Il pensiero giuridico di Costantino Mortati. Milan: Giuffrè, 1990, 165.
- 25.
Historians have pointed out that “the theory of the ‘parenthesis ’, which ties the threads of the methodological discussion to the pre-Fascist period or to the theory of rupture, indicating the collapse of the dictatorship as the turning point towards the new constitutional science, can be more realistically confronted, part of Italian doctrine having been “neutralized” and another having been surpassed, by a more interesting and modern line of thought that sprang from the intense debate itself which took place during the authoritarian period after the collapse of the liberal State”; Lanchester , Fulco. I giuspubblicisti tra storia e politica. Personaggi e problemi nel diritto pubblico del secolo XX. Torino: Giappichelli, 1998, 65.
- 26.
For in-depth research on the academic and doctrinal geography of post-war studies on constitutional law in Italy, see ibid., 113–120; Gregorio , Massimiliano. “Quale costituzione? Le interpretazioni della giuspubblicistica nell’immediato dopoguerra.” Quaderni Fiorentini per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno (2006), 35.
- 27.
Grossi, Scienza giuridica italiana, 290.
- 28.
Naturally the two sides were not rigidly defined and opposed to each other; for example, see Esposito who, from his position of “positivist critic,” clearly stressed the dangers of an unbalanced Constitution within its values; see Esposito , Carlo. La Costituzione italiana. Saggi. Padua: Cedam, 1954, 17 ff.; on this point, see Fioravanti , Maurizio. “Profilo storico della scienza italiana del diritto costituzionale.” In Labriola, Silvano, ed. Valori e principi del regime repubblicano, 1. II, Sovranità e democrazia. Rome/Bari: Laterza, 2006, 152.
- 29.
See Cavalli, Alessandro. “Generazioni.” In Enciclopedia delle Scienze Sociali, vol. IV. Rome, 1995, 237–242.
- 30.
The Italian legal culture of that age complies with Fogt ’s definition of political generation: “A political generation is composed by members of an age group or cohort that – confronting certain key events − take a similar aware position towards ideas and values of the political order in which they grew”; Fogt, Helmut. Politische Generationen. Empirische Bedeutung und theoretisches Modell. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1982, 21.
- 31.
The views expressed by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando on this matter are emblematic; see Quaglioni , Ordine politico, 12–25.
- 32.
See Rimoli, Francesco. “I manuali di diritto costituzionale.” Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico 4 (2001), 1412 f. The constitutional model of the Weimar Republic had played a relevant role during the Italian Costituente, and despite all the legal culture ‘classics’ produced in the 1920s in Germany, only Kelsen’s studies on pure legal theory were retained, omitting the ones on democracy and parliament, whereas the more explicit works by Schmitt , Heller, Smend and Leibholz , specifically on the relation between law, society and constitutional order, were neglected for a long time; see, on this point, Ridola , Paolo. “Gli studi di diritto costituzionale.” Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico 4 (2001), 1262.
- 33.
Fioravanti, Dottrina, 48.
- 34.
Ibid., 49.
- 35.
For a discussion of Costantino Mortati ’s constitutional theory, please refer to Galizia /Grossi , eds. Il pensiero giuridico; Galizia, Mario, ed. Forme di Stato e forme di governo: nuovi studi sul pensiero di Costantino Mortati. Milan: Giuffrè, 2007; Zagrebelsky, Gustavo. Premessa, quote, VII–XXXVII.
- 36.
Petri, Transizione, 23.
- 37.
On the reactions to the Grundgesetz , which came to a head within the German Staatslehre , see Stolleis . Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts, vol. IV, 125–145; on the reaction of the general public to the basic law, see Bommarius , Christian. Das Grundgesetz. Eine Biographie. Berlin: Rowohlt, 2009, 9 ff.
- 38.
Weber , Werner. Weimarer Verfassung und Bonner Grundgesetz. Göttingen: Fleischer, 1949. The critical positions of Weber were repeated in substance in id. Spannungen und Kräfte im Westdeutschen Verfassungssystem. Stuttgart: Vorwerk, 1951, to be partially revised a few years later in id. Die Verfassung der Bundesrepublik in der Bewährung. Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1957.
- 39.
Forsthoff, Ernst. Lehrbuch des Verwaltungsrechts, vol. 1, Allgemeiner Teil. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1950, 100 ff.; see also id. Einleitung zum Bonner Grundgesetz. Heidelberg: Rothe, 1953.
- 40.
Ipsen, Hans Peter. Über das Grundgesetz. Hamburg: Univ., 1950.
- 41.
The current-affairs journalism of Mangoldt , one of the fathers of the Grundgesetz , was particularly widespread. He contributed several times in major law journals of the time to illustrate and establish scientifically the reasons for the constituent; see Mangoldt , Hermann von. “Zum Beruf unserer Zeit für die Verfassungsgebung.” Die Öffentliche Verwaltung (1948), 51 ff.; id. “Die Grundrechte.” Die Öffentliche Verwaltung (1949), 261 ff.; id. “Grundrechte und Grundsatzfragen des Grundgesetzes Bonner.” Archiv für öffentliches Recht 75 (1949), 273–290.
- 42.
For a review of the activities of the Vereinigung in the years of the Democratic revival, see Ipsen , Hans Peter. Staatsrechtslehrer unter dem Grundgesetz – Tagungen ihrer Vereinigung, 1949–1992. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993.
- 43.
Lanchester, Fulco. “I costituzionalisti italiani tra Stato nazionale e Unione Europea.” Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico 4 (2001), 1084.
- 44.
Gregorio, Quale costituzione?, 857.
- 45.
Lanchester, I costituzionalisti italiani, 1086.
- 46.
For a discussion on the doubts of Capograssi over the forms of twentieth-century constitutionalism, on the suspicions of Orlando about the process of constitutional rationalization of power, on the embarrassment of Ranelletti over the discipline of the parties or on the diffidence of Crosa and Amorth about the acceptance of the sovereignty of the people, see Gentile , Francesco/Grasso , Pietro Giuseppe, eds. Costituzione criticata. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1999; Gregorio, Quale Costituzione?.
- 47.
Gregorio, Quale Costituzione?, 863.
- 48.
One of the critics who was most aware of the consequences that the decisions of the Supreme Court would have had concerning the definition of a system to guarantee the rights of freedom was Calamandrei; see Calamandrei , Piero. Scritti e discorsi politici, vol. II, ed. by Norberto Bobbio. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1966, 467 ff.
- 49.
Gregorio wrote: “In the aftermath of 1948, the panorama of Italian legal culture did not offer a sound, homogeneous reference paradigm, helpful in the interpretation of the Constitution. On the contrary, the science of constitutional law oscillated between longstanding mistrust and opening up, although not supported either by a shared theoretical framework or by a practical and reliable development strategy and implementation of the Charter”; Gregorio , Quale Costituzione?, 912.
- 50.
Crisafulli, Vezio. “La sovranità popolare nella Costituzione italiana.” Scritti in memoria di Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Vol. I. Padua: Cedam, 1955, 407–463.
- 51.
See Galante Garrone, Alessandro. Calamandrei. Milan: Garzanti, 1987, 264–282.
- 52.
Calamandrei, Scritti e discorsi politici, vol. I, 67 f.
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Cau, M. (2018). Continuity in Rupture: The Italian and German Constitutional Culture After 1945. In: Späth, J. (eds) Does Generation Matter? Progressive Democratic Cultures in Western Europe, 1945–1960. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77422-0_4
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