Critical Race Theory. Origins, Development, Theoretical Foundations

• Applicant: Daniel-Thabani Ncube
• Subject Area: Public Law
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 565062027

The dissertation submitted for consideration is the first German-language monograph to undertake an in-depth examination of “Critical Race Theory” (CRT), a school of thought that first emerged at US law schools in the 1970s and tasked itself with exploring the interplay between law and racism. To make sense of CRT, the thesis adopts a comprehensive approach of describing the social, historical and political context of CRT’s origins and development, examining its interdisciplinary elaborations and considerations on law and racism and situating CRT in current US legal and social philosophy. In doing so, the thesis hopes not only to make CRT accessible by virtue of exposing its context and fundamental texts, but also to consider its relevance for the German context. To this end, the thesis concludes by developing CRT considerations amenable to incorporation in Germany, methodological guidelines for such an incorporation and considerations on CRT’s potential and overall value for German legal and social thought. On the level of exposition, the thesis focusses on uncovering CRT’s history and development. Its discussion of CRT’s history begins with a detailed examination of the concept of race’s development in the USA and its interplay with the law in establishing relationships of domination to the detriment of African Americans in particular (race-based domination) from the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century. The thesis’ account of CRT’s development begins with the mid-1970s and examines prevailing contemporary social problems concerning race and law before proceeding to discuss CRT’s founding texts and examine the history of ideas relevant to CRT in greater detail by, inter alia, portraying pertinent basic considerations of social philosophy (notably the critique of ideology) as well as observations on law and domination stemming from American Legal Realism and Critical Legal Studies (CLS). After examining the status quo of US society in the 1980s, the thesis discusses further significant CRT texts, thereby conceiving the now-evident departure from previous CRT and CLS thought as a catalyst for CRT’s consolidation as an independent school of thought. The thesis’ exposition of CRT ends with a cursory overview of its further development up to the turn of the millennium, which is characterised by an increasing differentiation of contemplation yielding novel competing schools of thought. The thesis’ reconstruction of the theoretical foundations of CRT is based on its identification of CRT’s structural elements, i.e. race, race-related domination and law. Throughout the entire period under examination, CRT conceives race either as an objective fact or an idea generated by society. Race-related domination is understood as a social feature of complex depth that structures almost all areas of life and, hence, is barely perceived as such and closely intertwined with its respective social context. Whether race-based domination can be overcome is a controversial issue in CRT, as are considerations regarding the law’s emancipatory potential. While early CRT thought essentially sees it as a socially embedded instrument of domination that is, at best, of limited significance for shaping social reality, relevant later CRT considerations are much more open to law’s transformative potential.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants