Militant Democracy: A (Supposed) Weimar Lesson Revisited

References to “Weimar” have played an increasingly important role in trying to make sense of the present, and also to mobilize various constituencies. Related to the diagnosis of contemporary political movements as fascist or neo-fascist, there is the question of whether some of the lessons drawn in the postwar period from the failures of Weimar – especially the ones that inspired the creation of the legal toolkit generally known as “militant democracy” – should be central to attempts to defend democracy today. This chapter engages both issues and argues that the toolkit of militant democracy remains valuable in many ways – but that its instruments are often not well suited to dealing with today’s challenges to democracy.