The “Psychology” of Rechtsstaat. From a Sharp XIX-Century Distinction from Authoritarianism to the Collapse of One into the Other during Weimar Republic

The article is a contribution to a research project. Its basic contention is that Rechtsstaat is psychologically more counterintuitive than its competitor (e.g., sovereigntism; populism), and the reason for this would be the higher cognitive load required for conceptually processing the former. To demonstrate that contention, it was necessary to clearly separate a network of terms catching the conceptual essentials of Rechtsstaat from a similar network for competitor. This separation turned out to be difficult and the conjecture about this is that the latter does not exhibit radically different values and catchwords, but use the same basic concepts of the former, manipulating their meaning. So, a test for this conjecture is to investigate – that is the article’s aim – a real case of procedurally legal transition from a Rechtsstaat regime to autocracy: the dissolution of the Weimar Republic and the rise to power of Nazism. And unfortunately, the test is successful: if Rechtsstaat’s legality is not coupled with legitimacy, even a dictatorship can rightly call itself a Rechtsstaat.