Description
Full title: Constitutional Politics in Post-Westphalia Europe
Duration: 1 June 2012 to 31 August 2015
Total cost: € 307,000.00
PAT contribution: € 307,000.00
Host Organisation: University of Trento
Project leader: Paul Blokker
Possible other participants: Cristina Parau, Kristzina Kovacs, Baldvin Bergsson
Scientific or technological area: 14/C3 - sociology of political and legal phenomena
Keywords: Constitutionalism - Constitutional reform - Constitutional sociology - Hungary - Iceland - Italy - United Kingdom
Constitutional reforms are becoming increasingly common in Europe, particularly after the economic crisis. This project analyses recent constitutional reform projects in Hungary, Iceland, Italy and the United Kingdom. The aim is to understand the causes and justifications for reform as well as to study criticism and resistance to reform. The project uses an innovative, interdisciplinary political-sociological approach to constitutionalism, focusing on a variety of actors, not only the 'usual suspects' of judges, lawyers and politicians, but also representatives of civil society. The comparative framework develops four models of constitutionalism, used in an analysis of constitutional orders and identities, the design and methods of reform and the understandings, justifications and criticisms of key actors. The empirical-comparative analysis consists of an in-depth study of four national trajectories in the period 1989-2015, including historical-institutional analysis, interviews and constitutional surveys of judges, politicians and civil society representatives.
State of the art and innovation potential (i.e. innovative nature of the objectives, concepts involved, issues and problems to be addressed and expected outcomes beyond the state of the art):
Existing research on constitutional reform focuses on issues of design and legal principles of constitutionalism, but does not address the analysis of social and political justifications as well as resistance and criticism of the reform. The project investigates the contested nature of constitutions in European democracies, in times of rapid metamorphosis of constitutionalism.
Organisation of the work:
The team was coordinated by Paul Blokker, PhD., and consisted of Cristina Parau, PhD., Krisztina Kovacs, PhD., and Baldvin Bergsson, MA., each responsible for analysis and fieldwork in their respective case studies: Italy, the UK, Hungary and Iceland. The interdisciplinary research focuses on constitutional reform, justification and criticism, and combined methods from sociology, constitutional law, and political science.
Achievements :
Results include institutional and sociological analyses of four constitutional orders (constitutional identity, reform projects, causes and justifications and forms of (social) criticism of reform). The data generated include interview series with key actors, constitutional statement series and four national surveys (Q-sort). The final results consist of publications (in English), international conferences (Budapest, Oxford and Trento) and participation in international conferences.
Impact:
The data and insights are relevant to scholars in a variety of disciplines and academic institutions, providing insights into the design and methods of constitutional reform, constitutional debates and resulting legitimacy. The results and findings of the project are of great interest to public authorities (e.g. parliamentary committees on institutional and constitutional reform), EU institutions, legal institutions, non-governmental organisations and social movements.