Guest Post: What does respect mean to Horst Köhler?
Making sense of the German President’s resignation
The surprise resignation last week of German President Horst Köhler came in the wake of his controversial remarks regarding German military deployments. Köhler claims that he resigned because his opponents showed a “lack of respect” for his mostly ceremonial office by deliberately misinterpreting his statements. Regardless of whether this was the actual motivation behind the resignation, it is interesting to think about what respect for a political office might amount to. After all, the concept is not foreign to American ears.
I can think of three possible ways in which there might have been a “lack of respect” for Köhler’s office:
Respect for persons: Perhaps Köhler simply means that his opponents are not respecting him as a person. Surely in some sense respect for persons involves not intentionally spreading lies about them. Wrongly accusing Köhler of warmongering may be similar to wrongly accusing my neighbor of adultery, or even calling my friend on the playground a “butthead.” But even if Köhler is correct in thinking his opponents are intentionally misrepresenting his words (something exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to prove), a lack of personal respect is not the same thing as a lack of respect for the office.
Respect for opinions: Perhaps Köhler means that the misrepresentation of his words represent a lack of respect for his actual views, which should be discussed instead of demonized. This is a principle that liberal democracies are based upon. This might be the case, but it is certainly not an instance of a lack of respect for the office. After all, the President’s opinions are not more worthy of respect than other people’s opinions. In addition, criticism of a view is an essential aspect of respect for opinions in a liberal democracy. It is unclear why Köhler should resign over this type of lack of respect. The correct response would be to engage his opponents in the usual type of political debate in order to show that his opinions are worthy of discussion.
Respect for institutions: If a certain institution is valuable, then respect for that institution involves abiding by the rules of governing the institution. For example, if you think the democratic process is valuable, then you should follow a law passed through that process, even if you oppose and voted against that law. If no one followed this general rule then the institution of democratic law-making would fall apart. But notice that respect for the institution in this case is following the law, not necessarily agreeing with it. You can still criticize the law, demonstrate against the law, or attempt to start another vote to repeal the law. These are also all essential parts of the democratic process.
At most, respect for an office amounts to respecting the procedures governing that office. In Kohler’s case, this involves following the German Constitution in regards to Presidents. It seems that Köhler’s opponents have done this – they don’t deny him the title of President nor do they reject some exercise of his Presidential powers. I think the mistake here is giving political offices a type of transcendent moral weight – the type given to parents, for example, or the kings of yore. But the institutions of parenthood and kinghood are very different than the institutions of a liberal democracy. Modern governments are chosen by political communities through rules agreed upon in those communities. These rules rarely impart moral authority to the victors. This moral authority is a relic of divine right theories of government which have no place in a modern liberal democracy.
-Han Li
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