Verlust der Staatlichkeit

Stefan Haack deals with the nature of statehood, using his own approach from the perspective of political science, by regarding "statehood" as a form of a fundamental political commitment of a community and developing criteria for its identification in the interaction of various political levels. In order to do so, he reduces basic concepts of constitutional theory such as "state", "constitution" and democracy" to their essence and defines "sovereignty" as the ability of a community to give itself a constitutional order. Using valid European Community law and the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, the author then analyzes the present status of statehood and its future development in Europe and combines this with the question of a possible change in the form of government. He then gives a detailed discussion of the constitutional consequences which are a result of this.