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COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY
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RESEARCH HANDBOOKS IN COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
SeriesEditor:TomGinsburg,UniversityofChicago,USA
ComparativeConstitutionalLawisaburgeoningfield,bringingtobearadiversearrayof
methodologiesonabroadrangeofissues.TheResearchHandbooksinComparativeConstitutional
Lawseriesprovidesasetofcomprehensiveoverviewsofaspectsofthefield,includingcontributions
byscholarsfromaroundtheworld.Theaimistogivevoicetothefullrangeofconstitutional
experiencesfromawidesetofcountries,fromaninterdisciplinaryandcomparativeperspective.The
ResearchHandbooksprovideaninvaluableresourceinaworldinwhichjudges,constitution-makers
andconstitutionallitigatorsborrowconceptsandideasacrossborders.
Titlesintheseriesinclude:
ConstitutionsandGender
EditedbyHelenIrving
ComparativeConstitutionalTheory
EditedbyGaryJacobsohnandMiguelSchor
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Comparative Constitutional Theory
Edited by
Gary Jacobsohn
Department of Government, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Miguel Schor
Drake University Law School, USA
RESEARCH HANDBOOKS IN COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
Cheltenham,UK+Northampton,MA,USA
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©The Editors and Contributors Severally 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording,
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
The Lypiatts
15 Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
UK
Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
William Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950472
This book is available electronically in the
Law subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781784719135
ISBN9781784719128(cased)
ISBN9781784719135(eBook)
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Contents
List of contributors vii
1 Introduction: the comparative turn in constitutional theory 1
Gary Jacobsohn and Miguel Schor
PART I CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES AND RIGHTS
2 What is judicial supremacy? 21
Stephen Gardbaum
3 Federalism and constitutional theory 45
Stephen Tierney
4 Theoretical underpinnings of separation of powers 66
Cheryl Saunders
5 Constitutional dialogue and judicial supremacy 86
Miguel Schor
6 Judicial dialogue and fundamental rights in the European Union: a quest
for legitimacy 102
Aida Torres Pérez
7 Parliamentary bills of rights: have they altered the norms for legislative
decision-making? 123
Janet L. Hiebert
8 Social rights in comparative constitutional theory 144
Jeff King
9 Human dignity and its critics 167
Jacob Weinrib
PART II CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION
10 The counter-majoritarian thesis 189
David Robertson
11 Legal pragmatism and comparative constitutional law 208
David Landau
12 Beyond the principle of proportionality 229
Victor Ferreres Comella
13 Text and textualism: religious establishment in the United States Supreme
Court and the European Court of Human Rights 248
Howard Schweber
14 Reception, context and identity: a theory of cross-national jurisprudence 269
Heinz Klug
v
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vi Comparative constitutional theory
PART III CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
15 “We the people”, “oui, the people” and the collective body: perceptions of
constituent power 295
Yaniv Roznai
16 Amendment theory and constituent power 317
Mark Tushnet
17 Anchoring and sailing: contrasting imperatives of constitutional revolution 334
Gary Jacobsohn
18 Theorising about formal constitutional change: the case of Latin America 354
Joel I. Colón-Ríos
19 Transitional justice, transitional constitutionalism and constitutional culture 372
Gábor Halmai
PART IV ISSUES INCONSTITUTIONALISM
20 The unwritten constitution 395
Janet McLean
21 Militant democracy and constitutional identity 415
Jan-Werner Müller
22 Some notes on inclusive constitution-making, citizenship and civic
constitutionalism 436
John E. Finn
23 Race and American constitutional exceptionalism 456
Mark A. Graber
24 Constitutional dissonance in China 476
Wen-Chen Chang and David S. Law
Index 515
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Contributors
Wen-Chen Chang, Professor, National Taiwan University College of Law
Joel I. Colón-Ríos, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of
Wellington
Victor Ferreres Comella, Professor of Constitutional Law, Pompeu Fabra University
(Barcelona) and Visiting Professor, University of Texas at Austin
John E. Finn, Professor of Government Emeritus, Wesleyan University
Stephen Gardbaum, MacArthur Foundation Professor of International Justice and
Human Rights, UCLASchool of Law
Mark A. Graber, Regents Professor, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Gábor Halmai, Professor and Chair of Comparative Constitutional Law, European
University Institute, Florence, Italy
Janet L. Hiebert, Professor, Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University,
Kingston, Canada
GaryJacobsohn,H.MalcolmMacdonaldProfessorofConstitutionalandComparative
Law, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin
Jeff King, Professor of Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London
Heinz Klug, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin and
Honorary Senior Research Associate in the School of Law at the University of
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
David Landau, Mason Ladd Professor andAssociate Dean for International Programs,
Florida State University College of Law
David S. Law, Sir Y.K. Pao Chair in Public Law, The University of Hong Kong;
Charles Nagel Chair of Constitutional Law and Political Science & Affiliated Faculty,
East Asian Studies Program, Washington University in St. Louis
Janet McLean, Professor of Law, the University of Auckland and Associate Dean
(Research)
Jan-Werner Müller, Professor of Politics, Princeton University
vii
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viii Comparative constitutional theory
David Robertson, Professor Department of Politics and International Relations,
University of Oxford
Yaniv Roznai, Senior Lecturer, Radzyner School of Law, Interdisciplinary Center
(IDC) Herzliya
Cheryl Saunders, Laureate Professor Emeritus, Melbourne Law School
Miguel Schor, Professor of Law, Drake University School of Law
Howard Schweber, Professor, Political Science and Legal Studies, Affiliate Faculty,
Law School, Editor, Constitutional Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory and Director of the Edinburgh
Centre for Constitutional Law, The University of Edinburgh
Aida Torres Pérez,Associate Professor of Constitutional Law, Pompeu Fabra Univer-
sity
Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Jacob Weinrib, Assistant Professor, Queen’s University Faculty of Law
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1. Introduction: the comparative turn in constitutional
theory
Gary Jacobsohn and Miguel Schor
COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY
Our subject is comparative constitutional theory.As editors of this book we would like
to say what was once said in the first installment of a much more significant work:
“The subject speaks its own importance.”1 Of course the author of this declaration,
Alexander Hamilton, had such weighty matters as “the existence of the UNION” and
“the fate of an empire” in the calculation that brought him to his summary view of The
Federalist’s significance to the task at hand. Nothing so consequential is at stake for us,
but, beyond stating the obvious, we must address a preliminary question concerning
what exactly it is our subject comprehends.
A proper response might begin with the issue Hamilton raises in Federalist #1’s
opening paragraph, “whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing
good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to
depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”2This question is as vital
today as it was in the eighteenth century. The collapse of communism in Eastern
Europe and authoritarianism in the Iberian Peninsula and LatinAmerica led to renewed
optimism about the possibilities of constitutional design at the end of the twentieth
century. The populist, authoritarian headwinds buffeting long-standing democracies in
the North Atlantic World in the twenty-first century, however, have undermined
Whiggish views of democracy’s progress while underscoring the continued importance
of questions of design. The Federalist remains relevant to contemporary debates
because it provides us with a methodology or a toolbox for thinking about problems of
design that is grounded on reason and empirical observation.3The activity that today is
conducted under the designation constitutional design is in no small measure attribut-
able to the success of Publius’earlier effort.
As one of our contributors, Stephen Tierney, writes in his chapter for this volume,
“Constitutional theory is concerned with the notion of a well—or poorly—functioning
1 The Federalist No. 1 (Alexander Hamilton).
2 Id. As Sanford Levinson points out, “No sentence more marks Publius as child of the
Enlightenment.” Sanford Levinson, An Argument Open to All: Reading The Federalist in the
21st Century 9 (2015).
3 MiguelSchor,TheFederalistasaPrimeronConstitutionalDesign:ACriticalAppraisalof
Separation of Powers and Written Constitutionalism (2017) (unpublished manuscript) (on file
with author) [hereinafter Schor, The Federalist].
1
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