- Julian Scholtes, The Abuse of Constitutional Identity in the European Union (OUP, 2023)
This book impressively categorizes the manners in which constitutional identity may be abused by illiberal actors into generative, substantive, and relational aspects. This can provide a rejoinder to claims that constitutional identity is an unmitigated danger to liberal democracy, and instead may help us to preserve a concept that can usefully delimit the spheres of sovereign autonomy within a globalized world.
- Martin Loughlin, Against Constitutionalism (HUP, 2022)
The polemic title sets out the author’s stall as an academic who is always willing to challenge the prevailing consensus. Our RevDem editor Kasia Kryzyanowska’s interview with Professor Loughlin this year teased out the heart of the argument as one that seeks to privilege the power of politics to change society over the ideology of “constitutionalism” that may ossify progress through reifying legality.
- Stefan Auer, European Disunion. Democracy, Sovereignty and the Politics of Emergency (Hurst, 2022)
Stefan Auer’s monograph provides another challenge to one of the prevailing notions in liberal Western academia that the “empty seat of power” in supranational integration is a desirable feature of modernity. Instead, such over-bureaucratization may be a causative factor in the democratic irritations of populism and illiberalism. A full book symposium with contributions from Peter J. Verovšek, Gábor Halmai, and Petr Agha is available on RevDem.
- Ana Bobić, The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Conflict in the European Union (OUP, 2023)
The legal face of the illiberal challenge to supranational integration are constitutional conflicts between national apex courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union. Ana Bobić’s book provides a rigorous academic treatise on these phenomena from the perspective of an insider within the Court. Her development of categories of constructive and destructive constitutional conflict in the EU may marry well with Julian Scholtes’ notions of abusive and genuine constitutional identity claims, and can be used as a useful tool for future such conflicts.
- Mark Tushnet and Dimitry Kochenov (eds) Research Handbook on the Politics of Constitutional Law (Edward Elgar, 2023)
Finally, this handbook from Mark Tushnet and the DI’s lead researcher for the Rule of Law workgroup Dimitry Kochenov will be an authoritative tome on the interaction between core concepts such as democracy and the rule of law within constitutional systems. The handbook is divided into contributions on foundations, structure, rights, and futures, allowing both a systematic look into the origins of constitutional politics, and valuable reflections upon its development.
