Hans Kelsens Politische Philosophie

In contemporary Anglo-American and German debates on jurisprudence, social science and philosophy, Hans Kelsen's work on theory and justification plays, at most, a marginal role. What makes this even more regrettable is the fact that Kelsen's defence of democracy is, in many respects, both original and modern. Kelsen argues for normative legal positivism, law without justice, a theory of the state without a state, democracy without demos, for a society which lacks a collective will or a will of the people, while he also insists on the binding character of democratic decisions, given that value relativism is unavoidable.