1st Edition

Legal Imaginaries of Crisis and Fear Dark Constitutionalism

Edited By Martin Belov Copyright 2026
322 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

322 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explores the epistemological, semiotic, semantic, and heuristic dimensions of the dark emotions in constitutional and international law. We are living in times of crisis and emergency where negative emotions and dark feelings are abundant. As these have come to form the intellectual and socio-legal context for the performance of constitutional and international law, this book explores... Read more

Chapter 1: The Concept of Dark Constitutionalism
Martin Belov

Chapter 2: Is it the End of the World as We Know it? Apocalyptic Narratives in Political Debates and the Heuristics of Fear
Marta Soniewicka

Chapter 3: “Nothing Spreads Like Fear”. From the Government of the Plague to the Crime of Contagion
Emilia Musumeci

Chapter 4: Constitutional Over-Belief: Affective Intensity as a Function of Legitimation
Richard Sherwin

Chapter 5: Revolutionary Constitutions and their Constitutionalism: The Internalisation of Fear as Process and the Performance of Crisis in the Service of Stability
Larry Catá Backer

Chapter 6: From Fear to Hope: Law and Emotions' Response to Global Challenges
Julia Wesołowska

Chapter 7: Politics of Fear and Social Transformation Through the Lens of Legal Politics
Mario Krešić

Chapter 8: (Re)Invention of Memory. Constitutional Narratives in Central European – Sombre or Luminous?
Mirosław Michał Sadowski

Chapter 9: Trauma, Melancholia and the Law
Sabarish Suresh

Chapter 10: Crisis Affects in the International Legal Discourse
Jean D’Aspremont

Chapter 11: Terrorism as Imaginary: Creating Politics of Fear
Vesselin Popovski

Chapter 12: Climate Alarmism and Denialism
Shalvi Ponwar

Pulsing Constitutionalism and the Dichotomy between Dark and Bright Constitutionalism as Driving Force in Constitutional Space-Time
Martin Belov

Biography

Martin Belov is Professor in Constitutional and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’. He is Vice Dean of the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’, Faculty of Law.