Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law

"Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating"-- "Recent years have witnessed a multiplication of initiatives promoting constitutionalism and the rule of law. Both are understood, by many if not most, as necessary to create and sustain a just political order. If constitutionalism refers to a range of ideas and patterns of behaviour about how a government should be regulated in its powers in order to effectuate the fundamental principles of a political regime, it is usually a national constitution that shapes constitutionalism in concrete legal terms. A more abstract definition, which applies not only to nation states but also to a post-national order, identifies constitutionalism as 'an overarching legal framework that determines the relationships of the different levels of law and the distribution of powers among their institutions'"--