Constitutional Intolerance: The Fashioning of 'the Other' in Europe's Constitutional Repertoires

Based on her new book Constitutional Intolerance, Dr. Marietta van der Tol offers a deeper reflection on intolerance in politics and society today, explaining why minorities face the contestation of their public visibility, and how the law could protect them. It explores historical practices of toleration, distilling from it the category of 'the other' to the political community, whose presence, representation, and visibility is not self-evident and is often subject to regulation. The book considers 'the other' in the context of modern constitutions, with reference to (ethno)religious, ethnic, and sexual groups, exploring temporalities and spatialities of otherness. The seminar will draw on some of the examples in the book, which are taken from across the liberal-illiberal divide: France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. It highlights that vulnerability towards intolerance is inscribed in the structures of the law and is not merely inherent to either liberalism or illiberalism, as is often inferred.

 

 

Dr Marietta van der Tol is research fellow at the University of Cambridge, specialising in the comparative study of politics, law and religion. She studied at Utrecht University and Yale and holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Cambridge. From 2020-2024, she was at the University of Oxford as Alfred Landecker postdoctoral research fellow and College Lecturer in Politics (Lincoln College). She leads the interdisciplinary networks ‘Religion, ethnicity and politics in German, Dutch and Anglo-American contexts: nationalism and the future of democracy’ and ‘Protestant political thought: religion, state, nation’. Her book Constitutional Intolerance: the fashioning of 'the other' in Europe's constitutional repertoires (2024) appears in the CUP series comparative constitutional law and policy.