1st Edition

Routledge Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Change

Edited By Xenophon Contiades, Alkmene Fotiadou Copyright 2021
    468 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    468 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Comparative constitutional change has recently emerged as a distinct field in the study of constitutional law. It is the study of the way constitutions change through formal and informal mechanisms, including amendment, replacement, total and partial revision, adaptation, interpretation, disuse and revolution. The shift of focus from constitution-making to constitutional change makes sense, since amendment power is the means used to refurbish constitutions in established democracies, enhance their adaptation capacity and boost their efficacy. Adversely, constitutional change is also the basic apparatus used to orchestrate constitutional backslide as the erosion of liberal democracies and democratic regression is increasingly affected through legal channels of constitutional change.

    Routledge Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Change provides a comprehensive reference tool for all those working in the field and a thorough landscape of all theoretical and practical aspects of the topic. Coherence from this aspect does not suggest a common view, as the chapters address different topics, but reinforces the establishment of comparative constitutional change as a distinct field. The book brings together the most respected scholars working in the field, and presents a genuine contribution to comparative constitutional studies, comparative public law, political science and constitutional history.

    1 Introduction. Comparative constitutional change: a new academic field

    Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou

    PART I The study of comparative constitutional change: theoretical and methodological aspects

    2 Comparative methodology and constitutional change

    Jaakko Husa

    3 Order from chaos? Typologies and models of constitutional change

    Oran Doyle

    4 Constitutional endurance

    Tom Ginsburg

    5 Constitutional amendment versus constitutional replacement: an empirical comparison

    David S. Law and Ryan Whalen

    6 Varieties of liberal constitutionalism

    Mark Tushnet

    PART II Formal constitutional change

    7 Formal amendment rules: functions and design

    Richard Albert

    8 Constitutional design through amendment

    Manfred Stelzer

    9 The uses and abuses of constitutional unamendability

    Yaniv Roznai

    10 Federalism and constitutional change

    Nathalie Behnke and Arthur Benz

    11 Participatory constitutional change: constitutional referendums

    Eoin Carolan

    PART III Informal constitutional change

    12 Political practice and constitutional change

    David Feldman

    13 Judge-made constitutional change

    Joel I. Colón-Ríos

    14 Global values, international organizations and constitutional change

    Helle Krunke

    15 Crises, emergencies and constitutional change

    Giacomo Delledonne

    16 The material study of constitutional change

    Marco Goldoni and Tarik Olcay

    PART IV Contemporary challenges in the theory and practice of comparative constitutional change

    17 Constituent power and European constitutionalism

    Chris Thornhill

    18 Populism and constitutional change

    Paul Blokker

    19 The democratic backsliding in the European Union and the challenge of constitutional design

    Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz

    20 Constitution and self-determination

    Zoran Oklopcic

    21 Gender in comparative constitutional change

    Silvia Suteu

    PART V Case studies: distinct profiles of constitutional change

    22 The future of UK constitutional law

    Robert Blackburn

    23 Constitutional change in Australia: the paradox of the frozen continent

    Elisa Arcioni and Adrienne Stone

    24 Preservationist constitutional change in Latin America: the cases of Chile and Brazil

    Juliano Zaiden Benvindo

    25 Informal constitutional change in unlikely places: the case of South Africa

    James Fowkes

    26 Constitutional changes in Japan

    Yasuo Hasebe

    Biography

    Xenophon Contiades is Professor of Public Law, Panteion University and President of the Centre for European Constitutional Law, Athens, Greece.

    Alkmene Fotiadou is a Research Fellow at the Centre for European Constitutional Law, Athens, Greece.