Constitutionalism and Democracy

Is constitutionalism compatible with democracy and state-sovereignty? Do constitutions provide the necessary pre-conditions and framework for politics, or are they themselves the products of political debate and activity? Are written constitutions largely redundant, and frequently misleading, guides to the "effective" constitution of a country - namely, its political system? Or do they supply the norms, formal rules and regulations needed to run any reasonably complex organization? In this volume international scholars discuss these questions with particular reference to the United States and the European Union. The constitutional experience of the first has come to define the view of constitutionalism held by most contemporary legal and social philosophers; that of the second, however, has called many elements of the conception into question. Within a political entity that is at once multinational and international: federal and intergovernmental; and which combines community-wide with, often conflicting, state-specific constitutional norms and definitions of citizenship, traditional notions of rights and popular and state sovereignty appear problematic.
Which people, what kind of democracy and whose norms are either capable of constituting a European policy or justified in doing so, whatever form it may take, remain unresolved issues at a theoretical as well as a practical level. While some contributors conclude that as a result we need to think in terms of a global and truly universal constitutionalism that goes beyond democracy and the nation-state, others argue that we have to rethink constitutionalism in more political terms so as to facilitate both constitution making and democratic control in ways suited to the particular circumstances of this new context.