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This book explores the relationship between populism or populist regimes and constitutional interpretation used in those regimes. The volume discusses the question of whether contemporary populist governments and movements have developed, or encouraged new and specific constitutional theories, doctrines and methods of interpretation, or whether their constitutional and other high courts continue to use the old, traditional interpretative tools in constitutional adjudication. The book is divided into four parts. Part I contains three chapters elaborating the theoretical basis for the discussion. Part II examines the topic from a comparative perspective, representing those European countries w...
Written by members of the Social Imaginaries Editorial Collective, these programmatic essays showcase new critical interventions in understandings of social imaginaries and the human condition. They include a new comparative approach to theorizing Castoriadis, Ricoeur, and Taylor; the rethinking of the creative imagination in relation to common sense; analyses of political imaginaries in neoliberal and constitutional contexts from perspectives drawing on Gauchet and Lefort; and the taking up questions of historical continuity and discontinuity in civilizational worlds. In addressing pressing questions concerning social imaginaries, the book advances the field as a whole. The book includes a Foreword by George H. Taylor. This book is a must-read for all scholars interested in social and political imaginaries and will appeal to researchers and graduate students working across a wide variety of disciplines in the human sciences.
This book brings together a group of international scholars to discuss theoretical and comparative considerations of judicial accountability. Accountability of the judiciary is an essential element in a democratic state ruled by law. Its design must take into account the need to ensure both the legitimacy of the judiciary and its independence. The work discusses accountability in the light of recent research, including studies on the crisis of the rule of law in the contemporary world. The book adopts a broad approach to accountability, which has various facets, referring both to the courts, that is the organisational element of the judicial branch of government, and to judges, its individua...
This thoroughly revised Second Edition provides a refreshed overview of comparative constitutional law and theory. Expert authors investigate the recent proliferation of instances in which the practice of constitutionalism has been compromised by various forms of democratic erosion.
Constitutionalism under Stress reflects on comparative constitutionalism in Central and Eastern Europe through the lens of leading legal scholar Professor Wojciech Sadurski, whose writings have anticipated and scrutinized the current decline of liberal democracies and populist challenges to the rule of law in the region.Sadurski's work has chronicled the transition from concern for the most basic of human rights under authoritarian rule to the challenges of democratic governance. The compelling rights discourse of an earlier period gave way to claims of abuse of majoritarian prerogatives as the hopes of liberal democracy encountered the power of illiberalism. The theoretical responses offered for the preservation of liberal democracy, in light of the current turbulence regarding the rule of law in the region, produces a far reaching and effective reference tool on matters of constitutional capture and illiberal democracy.
This book provides an in-depth discussion and analysis of democracy in Europe, with a focus on the new EU member states, and makes an important and original contribution to the debate on the future of European democracy. Author Paul Blokker seeks to provide a critical reconceptualization of the notion of democratic political culture by developing a ‘multiple democracies’ theoretical approach. He draws on debates in democratization theory and normative political theory, and presents a cultural-sociological approach for the analysis of democratization and democratic regimes. This approach emphasizes the historical and cultural embedment of democracy, identifies a potential variety of ‘et...
This book considers whether the potential of democracy following the end of the Cold War was diminished by technocratic, judicial control of politics in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. It explores the complexities and drawbacks of modern constitutionalism by offering a comprehensive theoretical and comparative-empirical assessment of the status and role of constitutionalism in five new EU Member States. The democratization of countries in Central and Eastern Europe has been guarded by constitutions and constitutional courts. This book examines the implications of powerful courts and rigid constitutions for the democratic engagement of citizens and the political authority o...