In our most recent paper, a work-in-progress titled “Gödel’s Interbellum,” we borrow Bruce Ackerman’s influential theory of “constitutional moments” in order to survey the major extra-constitutional events unfolding in Europe during the interwar period between World War I and World War II. Specifically, we expand on the idea of constitutional moments to embrace “anti-constitutional moments,” that is, moments when major political change occurs outside the constitutional process, such as military coups, putsches, states of emergencies, self-coups, and other unconstitutional seizures of power.

Moreover, as we explain in our paper, such anti-constitutional moments may have also played a role in Kurt Gödel’s purported discovery in late 1947 of a logical contradiction in the U.S. Constitution–what we have called “Gödel’s Loophole” in our previous paper with the same title. Although Gödel’s discovery has been discounted as nonsense or as highly improbable, this negative assessment ignores Gödel’s Central European background and the dramatic constitutional histories of many Central European states during the interbellum period. Specifically, during his years at the University Vienna (1924-1940)–first as a student and then as a lecturer–Gödel would have noticed that every constitutional democracy in Central Europe ended in dictatorship.

We thus survey in our paper the series of “anti-constitutional moments” unfolding in interbellum Europe in order to shed some light on Kurt Gödel’s later discovery of a logical contradiction in the U.S. Constitution. By all accounts, Gödel’s main concern was the theoretical possibility of a constitutional or legalized dictatorship. But how likely is this possibility as a practical matter? It turns out, very likely, if the constitutional history of interbellum Europe is any guide. (Our paper is still very much a rough draft, so any criticisms–especially destructive ones–are welcome!)

Where did all the dictators go?