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The conference will be the third of its kind. In 2012 and 2014 conferences with a comparative

constitutional law approach took place in Stellenbosch and Berlin respectively. At these two

occasions, German and South African scholars debated cutting-edge constitutional issues on

representative and participatory democracy from a comparative perspective. This time the

debate will focus on the constitutional basis of democracy. The idea is to continue the debate

on a more fundamental level by shifting the focus to the prerequisites of constitutional

democracy. The benefit will be twofold: Firstly, it is hoped that a consideration of different

constitutional understandings of the foundations of democracy in these two countries will result

in a more nuanced understanding of the similarities and differences between these two

constitutional systems. Secondly, against the background of a variety of challenges faced

today by democracies in both the developed and developing world, a focus on the

preconditions of democracy is likely to enable both a better understanding of what is at stake

in debates about the “crisis” of democracy and a more adequate appraisal of possible ways to

rise to these challenges.