Faculty & Administration View All
Donald P. Kommers
Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science and Professor of Law Emeritus
Office Number: 1139 Flanner Hall
Telephone: 574.631.6304
Fax: 574.631.4197
Email: Donald.P.Kommers.1@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Rebecca Ward
Professor Kommers has published scores of major articles, including 10 books, mainly in the areas of constitutional law and politics. Much of his work focuses on the constitutional courts of several advanced democracies. He is the author of the widely acclaimed book, The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany, the 3rd edition of which is soon to be published by the Duke University Press, and the coauthor of a major course book in American constitutional law, also in its 3rd edition. His next book, Germany’s Constitutional Odyssey will be published in 2011. As Professor Emeritus he continues to teach advanced courses in American and comparative constitutional law as well as an undergraduate seminar on religion and politics. He earned his B.A. in philosophy and English literature from the Catholic University of America and his advanced degrees (M.A. and Ph.D.) in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also studied law. In 1998, he received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Germany’s Heidelberg University. He was the fourth American to be so honored by Heidelberg’s law faculty since the end of the Second World War. He also received an honorary doctor of laws degree from St. Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin where he delivered the commencement address to the class of 2007.
In addition to lecturing widely in the United States and abroad, Professor Kommers has held many prestigious positions and fellowships. He has been a frequent recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a resident scholar in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow on the law faculty of Cologne University (Germany), a Max Planck Society Fellow in the Max Planck Institute of International and Comparative Public Law in Heidelberg, a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Tokyo, and the winner of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for senior U.S. scholars, an award that allowed him to spend yet another year in Germany working on projects of his own choosing. His other honors include major grants and senior fellowships from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, American Philosophical Society, and German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 1991, he was co-winner of the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award for an article on privacy published in The World and I (September 1990). In 2008, he won the Berlin Prize, a coveted award that permitted him to spend a residential fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin (Germany) where he continued his work on Germany’s constitutional experience since 1945. On November 8, 2010, in a ceremony at the German Consulate in Chicago, Professor Kommers received, in the name of Germany’s Federal President, the Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his three decades of scholarship on German life, law, and politics and for having “remarkably enriched both the American and German legal systems and building a bridge between our countries as few others have."
Professor Kommers remains active in a number of professional organizations, including the American Political Science Association and the American Bar Association. In addition, he has served as President of the National Conference Group on German Politics, as an advisor to President Carter’s Commission on the Holocaust, as editor of The Review of Politics (for 11 years), and as an editorial advisory board member of several professional journals, including the American Journal of Jurisprudence, American Journal of Comparative Law, and the International Journal of Comparative Constitutional Law.
In the News
- Kommers receives high honor from German government – ND Newswire (November 11, 2010)
- What distinguishes Germany’s Basic Law from the United States Constitution? Published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, FAZ.NET (May 18, 2009)
- Prof. Donald Kommers Wins Major Fellowship – NDLS Home Page – February 11, 2008
About The Robbie Chair
The Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Chair in Government and International Studies, established in 1976, is the gift of Joseph Robbie in memory of his son, Dr. David L. Robbie, a 1966 cum laude graduate of the University who died in 1976. A native of South Dakota, Mr. Robbie practiced law early in his career in his home state before moving to Minneapolis in 1953, where he became active in urban governmental planning. In 1965, he founded the Miami Dolphins franchise of the National Football League and engaged in numerous Dade County, Florida, civic, charitable and political activities. He also served on the Advisory Council for the University’s College of Arts and Letters. Joseph Robbie died in 1990, and his wife Elizabeth died in 1991.
LAW73449, Comparative Constitutional Law
Faculty Expertise Areas
- Comparative constitutional law
- Constitutional law
- Human rights law
- Law and religion
Selected Books
American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes, 3rd ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009) with John Finn and Gary Jacobsohn.
The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany (Duke University Press, 1997).
The Federal Constitutional Court (American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 1994).
Germany and its Basic Law, edited with Paul Kirchoff (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994).
Human Rights and American Foreign Policy, edited with Gilbert Loescher (University of Notre Dame Press, 1979).
Judicial Politics in West Germany: A Study of the Federal Constitutional Court (Sage Publications, 1976).
The Governments of Germany, with Arnold J. Heidenheimer (Crowell, 1975).
Recent Essays
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht: Procedure, Practice and Policy of the German Federal Constitutional Court, 3 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW 194-211 (with Russell Miller) (2008).
Germany: Balancing Rights and Duties, in Interpreting Constitutions: A Comparative Study, (Jeffrey Goldsworthy ed., 2006): 161-214.
American Courts and Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, in The Judicial Branch (Kermit L. Hall & Kevin T. McGuire eds., 2005) 200-230.
Comparative Constitutional Law: Its Increasing Relevance in Defining the Field of Comparative Constitutional Law (Praeger, 2002): 61-70.
Die freie Meinungsäußerung in der Rechstprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts und des Supreme Court: Ein Vergleich in Verfassungswirklichkeit (Springer-Verlag, 2002): 1-30.
The Basic Law: A Fifty-Year Assessment, 53 Southern Methodist University Law Review 447-492 (2000).
Autonomy Versus Accountability: The German Judiciary in Judicial Independence in Comparative Perspective (University of Virginia Press, 2001): 131-154.
The Constitutionalism of Mary Ann Glendon, 73 Notre Dame Law Review 1333-1354 (1998).
_Transitional Justice in East Germany, _22 Law and Social Inquiry 829 (1997).
The Constitutional Law of Abortion in Germany: Should Americans Pay Attention?, 10 Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 1-32 (1994). (This article based on the author’s Brendan Brown Lecture delivered in the Law School of The Catholic University of America.)
