Constitutional democracy

A constitutional state binds its actions to universally binding, equal law; for norms can only be universally binding if they apply equally to all participants. In this case, all members of a state, regardless of ethnic, religious, economic, social, or political differences, constitute a people. This people can freely decide the rules by which it organizes its state, the extent to which it should exercise direct power, and by whom it wishes to be represented.

The rule of law and democracy are therefore mutually dependent: Democracy can only be vital if its decisions are effectively enforced, which requires a functioning state. The rule of law, for its part, requires norms of equal law that are democratically established.

Constitutional democracy in this sense ensures both: the individual rights of all citizens and the collective capacity to act – a performance profile that is not necessarily guaranteed according to the – currently common – concept of liberal democracy. Common notions of liberalism, especially economic liberalism, favor a comparatively weak state. Conversely, especially according to economic liberal thinking, the participants are by no means always equal. Rather, liberal, especially libertarian, thinking can even exclude equality and thus promote unlimited economic power. Consider the cooperation between dictatorships and big capital at the expense of the general public – as in the case of the Chilean Pinochet dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s and the increasingly clear autocratic profile of the current Trump administration.