Workshop: "Contemporary challenges to Constitutionalism, Democracy, and the State

Constitutionalism has traditionally been generally characterised by the tension between the understanding of sovereignty as restrained by a social contract and sovereignty as unlimited. The two views stand in tension, and the adoption of one or the other has an impact on the configuration of democracy, too. Moreover, the ambiguity and open-endedness of notions associated with constitutionalism and democracy brings to the fore the question whether and to what extent they are compatible with each other, whether their connection is internal or external and how it can be conceptualised. These issues are particularly compelling if one considers that the Westphalian model of State sovereignty has been subject to significant changes in recent decades. Though one can safely claim that State sovereignty remains a fundamental paradigm of modern legal and political arrangements, there are some open questions at least related to different evolutive paths taken by constitutionalism and democracy across borders, witnessing a refinement gap in favour of the former. Besides, this lagging behind of democrac.y seems related to the limits of the nation state, when subjected to the pressure of, for example, transnational integrative processes. 

We intend to revisit the notions of constitutionalism, democracy, and the State, and test them against recent events across the globe, which encourage reflections not only on their continued relevance and meaning, but also on their contribution to a thorough and exhaustive contemporary theory of polity-building.