¹ Leibholz, Gerhard, Die Wahlrechtsreform und ihre Grundlagen, 7 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 159, 181 (1931) [hereinafter Leibholz, Wahlrechtsreform].Google Scholar

² For biographical material, see Anna-Bettina Kaiser, Gerhard Leibholz, in Handbuch Staatsdenker 231 (Rüdiger Voigt & Ulrich Weiß eds., 2010).Google Scholar

³ This phrase, coined by Rudolf Smend on the occasion of Leibholz's 65th birthday, can be found, amongst other sources, in Peter Unruh, Erinnerungen an Gerhard Leibholz (1901–1982)—Staatsrechtler zwischen den Zeiten, 126 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 61, 90 (2001).Google Scholar

⁴ Klein, Hans, Gerhard Leibholz (1901–1982). Theoretiker der Parteiendemokratie und politischer Denker—ein Leben zwischen den Zeiten, in Rechtswissenschaft in Göttingen 528 (Fritz Loos ed., 1987).Google Scholar

⁵ Hecker, Jan, Die Parteienstaatslehre von Gerhard Leibholz in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion, 34 Der Staat 287 (1995).Google Scholar

⁶ Bertolt Brecht, Stories of Mr. Keuner 64 (Martin Chalmers trans., City Lights Books 2001) (“Mr. Keuner ran into Mr. Muddle, the fighter against newspapers. ‘I am a great opponent of newspapers,’ said Mr. Muddle. ‘I don't want any newspapers.’ Mr. Keuner said, ‘I am a greater opponent of newspapers: I want different newspapers.'”).Google Scholar

⁷ Leibholz, Gerhard, Repräsentation und der Gestaltwandel der Demokratie im 20. Jahrhundert (3d ed. 1966) [hereinafter Leibholz, Repräsentation]. The first edition of his habilitation was published in 1929 and was entitled Das Wesen der Repräsentation unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Repräsentativsystems. Ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen Staats- und Verfassungslehre. The second edition was published—unchanged, one might add—in 1960, with the title used here and maintained in the third edition; it was merely expanded by the lecture Der Gestaltwandel der Demokratie im 20. Jahrhundert from 1955. The third edition was published in 1966 and expanded by yet another lecture, Verfassungsrecht und politische Wirklichkeit, which Leibholz had held in 1965. It is remarkable that, in the respective prefaces, Leibholz comments on the reception and discussion of his work to date, thus himself testifying, as it were, to its continuity (beyond constitutions). For further central works in the context of the party state theory, see Leibholz, Wahlrechtsreform, supra note 1; Gerhard Leibholz, Volk und Partei im neuen deutschen Verfassungsrecht, 1950 Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt 194 [hereinafter Leibholz, Volk und Partei]; Gerhard Leibholz, Parteienstaat und Repräsentative Demokratie, 1951 Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt 1 [hereinafter Leibholz, Parteienstaat].Google Scholar

⁸ Leibholz, Wahlrechtsreform, supra note 1, at 159–60.Google Scholar

⁹ Leibholz, Parteienstaat, supra note 7, at 3.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Leibholz, Wahlrechtsreform, supra note 1, at 188.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Leibholz, Parteienstaat, supra note 7, at 4.Google Scholar

¹² Leibholz quotes a minister of education named Grimme as a political referee. Liebholz, Wahlrechtsreform, supra note 1, at 180.Google Scholar

¹³ Leibholz, Parteienstaat, supra note 7, at 7.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Leibholz, Repräsentation, supra note 7, at 98.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Leibholz, Repräsentation, supra note 7, at 103.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Hecker, supra note 5, at 289.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Id. at 299; Kaiser, supra note 2, at 231.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Hecker, supra note 5, at 287, 291.Google Scholar

¹⁹ On the development of Leibholz's theses and their reception, see Hecker, supra note 5, at 287.Google Scholar

²⁰ Köttgen, Arnold, 19 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 290 (1930).Google Scholar

²¹ Wolff, Hans, 24 Archiv für Rechts- und Wirtschaftsphilosophie 392 (1930).Google Scholar

²² Nawiasky, Hans, 26 Leipziger Zeitschrift für deutsches Recht 130 (1932).Google Scholar

²³ Wolff, supra note 21, at 397.Google Scholar

²⁴ Köttgen, supra note 20, at 291.Google Scholar

²⁵ Hofmann, Hasso, Parlamentarische Repräsentation in der parteienstaatlichen Demokratie, in Recht—Politik—Verfassung. Studien zur Geschichte der politischen Philosophie 249, 255 (1986).Google Scholar

²⁶ Cf. Hesse, Konrad, Die verfassungsrechtliche Stellung der politischen Parteien im modernen Staat, 17 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 10, 21 (1959). Hesse refers directly to Leibholz's writings on the Federal state. See, e.g., infra notes 28, 37.Google Scholar

²⁷ Leibholz, Parteienstaat, supra note 7, at 4.Google Scholar

²⁸ Hesse, supra note 26, at 10. In several elaborations, one can sense how Hesse, usually without being explicit, develops his model as a form of dissociation from Leibholz. Very often, Hesse employs arguments that render Leibholz's reflections even in the way they are phrased. Nonetheless, as his footnotes show, he barely deals explicitly with Leibholz or with the ample Weimar discussion; rather, he celebrates the caesura of the Grundgesetz—even though the title of his work, with its recourse to the “modern state,” might have suggested otherwise. See infra note 26.Google Scholar

²⁹ Hesse, supra note 26, at 21.Google Scholar

³⁰ Leibholz, Repräsentation, supra note 7, at 254.Google Scholar

³¹ Leibholz, Repräsentation, supra note 7, at 254.Google Scholar

³² Stolleis, Michael, Parteienstaatlichkeit—Krisensymptome des demokratischen Verfassungsstaats?, 44 Veröffentlichungen der Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 7 (1986).Google Scholar

³³ Hesse, supra note 26, at 19.Google Scholar

³⁴ Stolleis, supra note 32, at 33.Google Scholar

³⁵ Id. at 36.Google Scholar

³⁶ Instead of citing later scholars, I refer the reader to Volker Mittendorf, Die Qualität kollektiver Entscheidungen 25 (2009). Further sources are provided there.Google Scholar

³⁷ See, e.g., Möllers, Christoph, Expressive versus repräsentative Demokratie, in Transnationale Verrechtlichung. Nationale Demokratien im Kontext globaler Politik 160 (Regina Kreide & Andreas Niederberger eds., 2008).Google Scholar

³⁸ As an introduction to the themes dealt with here, see Towfigh, Emanuel & Petersen, Niels, Ökonomische Methoden im Recht. Eine Einführung für Juristen 133 (2010).Google Scholar

³⁹ Proponents of the emerging public choice theory referred to the classic image political science had of the political actors as “romantic”; such actors could be “voters,” “politicians,” and “bureaucrats.” See, e.g., Gordon Tullock, The Politics of Bureaucracy (1965).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ For the (limited) aims of this contribution, it should suffice to discuss only the central and most basic presumptions; many of these presumptions and models have been developed and further refined since the inception of public choice theory some six decades ago, or else they have been modified to suit special applications. All this, however, cannot be dealt with in depth here.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Hartmann, Bernd, Eigeninteresse und Gemeinwohl bei Wahlen und Abstimmungen, 134 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 1 (2009).Google Scholar

⁴² Finally, it should be added that the party list system intensifies the political effects generated by the parties. For this institutional organization means that the party becomes more important for the candidate than the voters, because the party can secure a seat even if the candidate is unsuccessful with the voters; the party provides him not only with the logistical and financial means to campaign for votes, but it can also assure him of a promising position on the party list much the way insurance works. Yet, only such parties can offer a promising place on a party list in electoral system with proportional representation whose elected representatives convince the electorate. In this text, I can of course only rudimentarily touch upon these aspects that have been subject to intensive research in political science and political economy.Google Scholar

⁴³ It seems important to note that the median voter theorem, giving expression to a strong political intuition, can only be proven mathematically with a number of restricting assumptions, among which are a one-dimensional policy space, a majoritarian two-party first-past-the-post system, and single-peaked voter preferences that in this pure form might only be rarely met in reality.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Hotelling, Harold, Stability in Competition, 39 Econ. J. 41 (1929).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ E.g., Schumpeter, Joseph, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy 269 (1975).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Leibholz, Repräsentation, supra note 7, at 246.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See Hirschman, Albert, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organisations, and States (1970).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See supra Part C.I.2.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cf. Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Cf. Petersen, Niels, Demokratie und Grundgesetz—Veränderungen des Demokratieprinzips in Art. 20 Abs. 2 GG angesichts der Herausforderungen moderner Staatlichkeit, 58 Jahrbuch des öffentlichen Rechts 137 (2010).Google Scholar

⁵² In the literature on Public Choice, this phenomenon is called logrolling. An impressive current example from the United States Senate may be consulted, Senate Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Markup, Part 1, (C-SPAN television broadcast Mar. 26, 2009), available at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/284890-1 (last visited Mar. 14, 2012).Google Scholar

⁵³ In political economy scholarship, the relation between citizens and state organs is regarded as being analogous to a principal-agent relation. Here, the citizens are seen as principals and the state organs are seen as agents. See more details on this in James Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty (1975).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Cf. Nicklisch, Andreas & Petersen, Niels, Vertragstheorie, in Towfigh & Petersen, supra note 38, at 121. Adverse selection describes a mechanism in which there is a downward spiral as a result of information asymmetry between the principal (e.g., a buyer who is ultimately not capable of reliably determining the quality of a product) and the agent (e.g., a seller who knows the product and its quality well). Worse and worse goods are sold at ever lower prices, because the average price (the weighted average of the relation between good and poor products on the market) offered by the buyer, who is burdened with an information risk, is only attractive for those buyers whose product is poor, i.e., worth less than the average price. Those who have good products stay away from the market, which is why we speak of a market mechanism leading to an adverse selection.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Cf. Akerlof, George, The Market for “Lemons”: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, 84 Q.J. Econ. 488 (1970).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Accession to a party might well be such a signal. Cf. Snyder, James & Ting, Michael, An Informational Rationale for Political Parties, 46 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 90 (2002).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Scores of mathematicians and economists attempt to sidestep this implacable insight by developing models that try to soften individual criteria—so far, without much success. For the dictator and the Pareto criterion, a modification is not up for discussion. With transitivity, compromises might indeed be reached—perhaps it suffices merely to determine the winner of an election—but further developments of Arrow's theorem have shown that there are significant difficulties even then. Whether the criterion of independence of irrelevant alternatives should be softened or given up altogether is indeed being discussed; however, what are still lacking are good reasons that may rationalize an election procedure that contravenes this criterion. With regard to the criterion of universality, there is hope: Much research is being conducted to develop models offering—for certain situations—procedures that could avoid our problems. For the political theory discourse, a set of alternative models seems interesting that does not presuppose completely arbitrary preference orders of voters but well-ordered political conflicts. On this, see also the synopsis in Amartya Sen, The Possibility of Social Choice, 89 Am. Econ. Rev. 349 (1999). Moreover, for the sake of completeness, it shall be noted that the Downsian median voter theorem described above may be considered one solution to the Arrow theorem: If an aggregation of preferences at the median is successful, this preference order meets all criteria postulated by Arrow. However, the Downsian model assumptions, especially the one-dimensional policy space and the single-peaked preferences of voters, may hardly be met in reality.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Hartmann, supra note 41, at 22.Google Scholar