On a measuring scale, the red line marks the limit beyond which it gets dangerous: any hotter, louder, more intense – and the whole thing blows up. The line divides the range into a safe this side and a catastrophic beyond, draws a boundary between the two, and since drawing boundaries has always been the business of politics, it lends itself perfectly as a political metaphor. Especially in a territorial sense: the “Red Line Agreement”, which in 1928 established the cartel of the British, French and American oil companies in the Middle East (also a key moment in the history of democracy), owes its name to the red ink with which the participants supposedly encircled the territory of the defeated Ottoman Empire and thereby delimited the scope of their cartel. Whoever speaks of red lines speaks of territories, directly or figuratively: here is the line. Cross it and you will be in trouble! Or, as the Trump administration would put it: F* around and find out!

The Grundgesetz draws red lines for state authority – monitored by the Federal Constitutional Court – as Susanne Baer recently described in her important book. But in German politics, lately there has also been much talk of “red lines” in relations among political actors themselves. Take, for instance, the recent recommendations of the conservative think tank Republik21 on how to deal with the so-called “New Right” – a.k.a. right-wing populists, right-wing extremists, or simply Nazis. Those parties who describe themselves as “bürgerlich” (i.e. representing respectable ordinary people, as opposed to the nobility and the lower-class rabble) should replace the cordon sanitaire “Brandmauer” policy of strict exclusion of the AfD with differentiated red lines that define various and flexible limits of cooperation from one policy field to another. According to the R21 paper, CDU and CSU should in future determine their course on the basis of what is “constitutionally permissible” and what is “politically capable of commanding consent”. In other words: the question of what counts as a red line when forming majorities with the AfD, where it runs and what it separates from what, is, according to R21, something conservatives should answer by looking into the Basic Law – or into the mirror.

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Can that work? A few theses.

1. What is “politically capable of commanding consent” seems to me, to begin with, entirely unsuitable for marking the limits of cooperation in a democracy. What can win my consent as a politician is principally a matter of what I get from the other party in return; otherwise I cannot do politics. This is not a question of being allowed to want, but of wanting to.

2. There may be limits to what I allow myself to want. Whoever draws red lines in that sense draws them less for others than for oneself. It is myself I am threatening not to cross this line: beyond this point I must not want, without losing myself. The boundary follows from my identity. And vice versa.

3. In doing so, I also divide the territory of politics into a political realm of compromise-finding and an identitarian realm of self-assertion. Marking such boundaries is itself a highly political act. In doing so I exercise power. One can see this in the R21 paper: on the one hand, it essentialises certain political aims (for example transatlanticism even in times of Trump) into a question of “bürgerlich” identity. On the other hand, it seeks to avoid the political incapacity into which such identitarian self-limitation inevitably leads by resorting to softening formulas such as “generally”, “across the board”, and “in principle”, thereby stripping the alleged red lines of most of their distinguishing force.

4. According to R21, the other yardstick for what one may be willing to want in a democracy is what is “constitutionally permissible”. Unlike the “politically capable of commanding consent” line, this red line is drawn primarily for the potential cooperation partner: what they want must not violate the constitution, otherwise one cannot, or rather: one must not cooperate with them. The constitution, so the claim goes, draws the boundary between cooperation and conflict among political parties.

5. But what one must be allowed to want in a democracy cannot be a question of constitutional law. Constitutional politics is also politics. Constitutions are amendable and typically provide procedures for that, and for good reason: the rules of the political game must themselves remain politically contestable, otherwise democracy ossifies into liberal authoritarianism. Those who equate what constitutional law permits and forbids with the red lines of political will often merely want to elevate their own constitution-conforming desires into the realm of the sacrosanct.

6. A criterion can be gained if democracy is understood as a procedure: as the proceduralisation of conflicts of interest and opinion so as to arrive at collectively binding decisions among a plurality. This includes formal legal procedures – governmental, administrative, legislative and judicial – but also public discourse and the formation of opinion in society. At its outset, it must be open how it will end. Processing must be done. Hence procedure.

7. The red line runs where a participant in the procedure contradicts the function of it through their participation in it. Whoever abuses their participation in a procedure in order to thwart its functional purpose thereby disqualifies themselves from participation. This can include obstruction. It can also include policies aimed at predetermining the outcome from the outset, through manipulating elections, for instance, or capturing media and judiciary, but also through advocating an identitarian concept of demos as ethnos. To identify such red lines, one must focus on strategy, not on content. They are recognisable not so much by particular policy goals or by their position in the centre or at the extremes of the political spectrum, but by the strategy that is pursued. Whoever abuses procedural rights as a means to the end of establishing a regime that can no longer be contested, criticised or voted out must be disqualified. With those who pursue such a strategy, one must not want to cooperate in a democracy for the sake of democracy.

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Brazil’s President Lula is also thinking about red lines. He wants to reform the Supreme Court and introduce fixed terms for judges. MIGUEL GUALANO DE GODOY (ENG) explains why such red lines misdiagnose the problem and fail to address the real issues.

The EU has red numbers to contend with as well. It wants to grant Ukraine a loan repayable only under certain conditions, to be financed via bonds. MAXIMA HUBBES (GER) explains how the German Federal Constitutional Court’s rulings on EU borrowing play into this.

This week, we’ve also continued our symposium on “Reflexive Globalisation and the Law”, co-edited by Philipp Dann, Florian Jeßberger, and Kalika Mehta. You can watch the keynote speech by Dipesh Chakrabarty for the launch of the RefLex Centre here.

OUMAR BA shows that the Global South continues to engage with international law despite its colonial roots, balancing its oppressive legacy with the potential for genuine reform. MIRIAM SAAGE-MAAẞ reveals that supply chains and corporate law not only legalise large-scale deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, but can also serve to protect ecosystems and Indigenous communities. ALEJANDRA ANCHEITA criticises the global energy transition, which – despite being framed as a response to the climate crisis – often reproduces colonial power structures in the Global South and externalises social costs onto Indigenous communities. ISABELLA ABODERIN shows that only reflexive, deliberately designed North-South research collaborations can transform research, rebalancing knowledge and power globally. For THEUNIS ROUX, much depends on how we conceive of liberal constitutionalism and, in particular, whether it is best thought of as a coherent ideology or as a pragmatic, experimentalist tradition. AMADOU KORBINIAN SOW argues that a scholarly practice which embraces historical contingency, uncertainty, and reflexive questioning leads not to self-assurance but to productive self-unsettlement. JEANETTE EHRMANN advocates for a political modernity from below and portrays the enslaved as political actors whose resistance reshapes how we think about modernity and the law. SEBASTIAN CONRAD shows how Eurocentrism operates through institutions, narratives, and concepts – and why revising vocabulary alone will not undo structural asymmetries in knowledge production. KALIKA MEHTA argues that the critique of international criminal law as “Eurocentric” or “Western-dominated”, however historically, politically, and analytically valid and necessary, may have reached the limits of its explanatory power. JOHANNES SOCHER, SATANG NABANEH, ABDOU KHADRE DIOP, ADEM ABEBE and SAMI ABDELHALIM SAEED propose to explore pathways towards a truly endogenous African constitutionalism, rooted in Africa’s socio-political, cultural, economic, and historical realities.

For those whose eyes are too tired to read about all of this, I recommend watching the historical Super Bowl halftime show by Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny. It captures everything you need to know about the relationship between the Global North and South. At a meta level alone: you have to speak Spanish to understand it. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting,” wrote the US president in his poetic review. The last thing you see on Bad Bunny’s show is a huge banner, black on white, and – so the president can get it too – in English: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”