ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on aspects of democracy which demonstrate that Hans Kelsen's approach to democratic theory excludes the central ideas of psychoanalytic political psychology relevant to the issues of group psychology. Kelsen's engagement with Freud unfolds as part of comprehensive monographic treatise on the sociological and juridical dimensions of the concept of the state. Kelsen's research focuses upon the question of how the formation of the state, as a highly sophisticated form of social organization, becomes possible. The history of psychoanalytic social psychology has been shaped decisively by the genesis and the fatal significance of National Socialism. The chapter deals with the work of Theodor W. Adorno and E. Simmel in order to demonstrate psychoanalytic-social psychological argumentation that had been inspired by Freud's group psychology.
