Freedom of Association Revisited: Political Parties and Other Associations (Half-Term: Berlin)

The seminar revisits the fundamental normative issues at stake, but also engages in systematic comparisons of the US and Germany, which take fundamentally different approaches to the regulation of parties (and, to a lesser degree, civil society). We examine existing laws governing parties (including the regulation of parties' internal political activities and their financing); we also explore mechanisms for banning them (party prohibitions are a central element of Germany's "militant democracy;" they are often seen as a completely alien idea in US constitutionalism).