Adjectival Constitutionalism

Abstract

Constitutionalism “with adjectives” is now a common part of the comparative constitutional law vocabulary. But scholars often use the same adjectives in different ways, and suggest that different “constitutionalisms” are alternatives, when in fact they overlap in complex ways. This Article thus seeks to unpack the logic of adjectival constitutionalism, and its variants, by pointing to four distinct but overlapping versions of adjectival constitutionalism—that is, the idea of constitutionalism as topic, model, mode, and discourse. By understanding adjectival constitutionalism in this way, the Article suggests, scholars can better appreciate the ways in which constitutional discourses overlap, and hence are deployed in complementary ways in the service of positive legal and political change. This four-part schema further highlights the potential gap between constitutionalism as model and discourse, and therefore the ways in which constitutional discourses may be disconnected from related models of change—in ways that contribute to both a form of utopian constitutionalism, and misuse or abuse of democratic constitutional discourses and aspirations.