"An Undemocratic Origin" - Daniel Ziblatt on the American Constitution
The U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the world and it has been continuously in place since the 18th century. When it was drawn up, it was world-changing in a republican sense. But nonetheless the origin of the American constitution is pre-democratic, as WZB director and Harvard Professor Daniel Ziblatt explains in an interview for the audio edition of the WZB Mitteilungen.
Although slavery is all over the document, the word slavery never appears once in the document. “This is the real paradox: that the document is the basis of our democracy and has very much an undemocratic origin”, Ziblatt points out.
The interview was conducted by Harald Wilkoszewski and Claudia Roth.