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

Based on Professor van der Tol's new book Constitutional Intolerance, this seminar offered 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' tot the political community, whose presence, representation, and visibility is not self-evident and is often subject to regulation. Dr. van der Tol's 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 drew on some of the examples in the book, which have been  taken from across the liberal-illiberal divide: France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. It highlighted that vulnerability towards intolerance has been inscribed in the structures of the law and was not merely inherent to either liberalism or illiberalism, as has often been inferred.