Democracy, the Social State & the Economy: 7th Biannual German-South African Dialogue on Democracy at Stellenbosch University

On 6 and 7 February 2025, the 7th Biannual German-South African Dialogue on Democracy on the topic “Democracy, the Social State & the Economy” will take place at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. South African Constitutional Court Judge Justice Steven Majiedt and German Ambassador to South Africa Andreas Peschke will be among the speakers. Prof. Dominik Steiger will moderate a session on the topic "Democratising the economy?"

The event was organized in cooperation with the Center for International Studies at TU Dresden, Leuphana University, the University of Basel and the University of the Western Cape. For more information, including the program, here you can find a flyer of the event.

The following description of the event is provided herewith:

"The crisis of democracy, which has been proclaimed so often in the past decades, is arguably also a crisis of the social and economic dimensions of democracy. Economic globalization, the ascendancy of what is referred to in social theory as a neoliberal governing rationality that reduces citizens to economic actors and treats poverty as the result of individual choices, and growing economic inequality appear to have contributed to the erosion of the social and material basis of democracy and democratic citizenship. These developments have coincided with changes in governance that make growing segments of the population feel politically voiceless and marginalised.

The problem, it seems, is twofold. On the one hand, poverty and economic inequality erode the legitimacy of representative institutions and deprive some populations of the ability to make themselves heard. On the other hand, wealthy elites and multinational corporations wield disproportionate economic power and political influence; and the regulation of the economy – at the international, national, and subnational levels – becomes insulated from mechanisms designed to promote democratic accountability and responsiveness.

In view of this, the dialogue will consider the following issues:

1. Democracy and the Social State

• To what extent have German and South African constitutional law and jurisprudence accepted that democracy has a material and social basis?
• Which versions of a social understanding of democracy are embedded in the German and South African constitutions, in the concepts of the “Sozialstaat” and transformative constitutionalism, respectively? • What relationship between constitutional democracy and the economy is presupposed by these two versions of democracy? Which assumptions about the economy inform these constitutional frameworks?

2. The eroding material and social basis of democratic citizenship

• Has the material and social basis of democratic citizenship been eroded? If so, why did that happen? Is it a global phenomenon? Are there significant differences in how these developments play out in different parts of the world?
• Can constitutional norms and developments (e.g., the right to equality, socioeconomic rights, the horizontal application of fundamental rights, and doctrines developed in Germany under the rubric of the “Sozialstaatsprinzip” and in South Africa under transformative constitutionalism) help to remedy these problems? Or are more radical forms of redistribution required?

3. Democratising the economy?

• Have economic policies and decision-making been insulated from democratic control and have they become the province of (national and global) corporate and political elites? If so, how did that happen? What role, if any, has the interpenetration of public and private power (e.g., through campaign financing) played?
• How can the power of those elites be curbed? How can workers, the unemployed, voters, and the demos be empowered to hold economic power accountable? What role can participatory forms of democracy, such as participatory budgeting, play?
• How and to what extent can constitutional mechanisms be used to achieve these goals?"

Source: University of the Western Cape in the event flyer linked above.