Neue Staatswissenschaften

Edited by Hermann-Josef Blanke†, Werner Jann, and Holger Mühlenkamp

Previous German political science was inconceivable without the belief in the function of the state as a »meaningful whole.« Scholarly reflections on this focused on comprehending the »totality« of the essence of the state. This view of the all-embracing role of the state changed a long time ago, and any science's claim to »totality« in the sense of a doctrine which comprises the state as a whole is no longer valid. In the age of globalization and privatization, the question is whether or not there is a need for sovereign rule. The state has relinquished major monopolies to international and local public and private organizations and associations, and has been losing its regulating power and its protective function as well as its authority to set standard values and to enforce them. However, this »desovereignization« has resulted merely in a change of the functions performed by the state, and not in its demise. One single scientific discipline would not be able to explain the change which has taken place in the concept of statehood. This intricate procedure can only be interpreted in a dialog between economists, political scientists, legal scholars and sociologists, but also experts from the areas of finance and history and the organization doctrine. A political science which has been transformed to such an extent is detached from the state-centered canonization of those branches of science which used to be involved

Contact:
Daniela Taudt, LL.M. Eur.
Program Director Public Law, International and European Law, and Fundamentals of Lawand is trying to see the state as a present-day universal phenomenon.

ISSN: 1860-2339 / eISSN: 2569-4189 - Suggested citation: NStW