Volume 18, Issue 4

In this article, a systematic framework has been developed that identifies the key conceivable formal relationships that form the interface between populism and the constitution. It is concluded that while populist constitutionalism is a dead-end category because populism itself does not respect limitations on power, constitutional populism is possible. The various manifestations of constitutional populism are then broken down according to whether populism is capable of effectively influencing the content of a constitution. In the case of genuinely populist content, the various degrees of this influence are illustrated, all the way up to the almost impossible realization of a populist constitution. After a comparative application of these findings to Hungary and Bolivia and their constitutional reforms, the layers and scales at which populism can affect the state are explained using a three-dimensional representation. The article concludes by cautioning against the risks of the common practice among scholars of adjectivizing the noun ‘constitutionalism’, as in the case of ‘populist constitutionalism’, without defining the point at which the adjective corrupts the noun.

Drawing on the intersection of the theory of the regulatory state, labor regulation theory of the legal origin, and the literature on emergency constitutionalism, the article introduces the notion of labor emergency constitutionalism, within the welfare emergency regulatory state. While focusing on the novel issue of emergency constitutionalism within the labor market, the article presents two variants for labor emergency constitutionalism and the development of different roles of the courts. The article explores the jurisdiction of Israel and Britain, presenting two distinct approaches to constitutionalism. Based on the problems invoked by both models, the article presents a suggested new model.

The Ethiopian Federal Constitution currently in force has hitherto been formally unreformed. This does not mean that there has been no societal pressure to reform; rather, the opposite is true. Since the time of its adoption, the Constitution has been a controversial document, and it has been subjected to substantial criticism both from within academic circles and from a wide range of political parties and other societal elites. Due to a lack of democratic space in the process of its development, the Federal Constitution has suffered from a legitimacy deficit, which has prevented the document from constituting the basis for a widely shared national identity or standard for common citizenship. These legitimacy problems have not benefited from the fact that the many identity-related tensions and conflicts that have ravaged the country and have prevented durable peace, stability, and sustainable socio-economic development are directly linked to the Constitution by its detractors. It seems that only a constitutional reform could offer a way out. Rather than focusing on the substance of constitutional reform, this paper concentrates on the process that should create a conducive environment for such substantive options to be debated and decided on. While the deep ethnic polarization and manifold public security problems currently afflicting Ethiopian society make such reform necessary, they simultaneously create a very challenging environment for a constitutional reform process to be adequately implemented and administered. In this regard, the paper argues that, apart from the necessity of securitization measures, the design of the constitutional reform process, which needs to be participatory and inclusive, can have a positive impact on both these security problems and on the development and drafting of a constitutional document that provides a widely agreed-upon and, hence, legitimate foundation for durable peace, stability, and sustainable socio-economic development.

With democratic decay advancing around the globe, scholars deeply disagree about courts’ ability to protect democracy. I argue that this divergence is influenced by conceptual and theoretical deficiencies of the debate. The existing approaches to judicial responses to democratic decay often do not pay sufficient attention to the differences among courts and the environments in which they operate. To tackle these issues, this article introduces the judicial countering capacity frame as an analytical tool to guide further empirical analysis. The framework recognizes courts’ agency but emphasizes the constraints and resources stemming from the environment in which a court operates. Moving away from single-factor explanations, I make a case for a multicausal understanding of judicial countering of democratic decay. I argue that the extent of a court’s countering capacity rests on three pillars: institutional design, the level of political pluralism, and political culture towards courts. The judicial countering capacity frame invites an empirically oriented agenda focusing on micro-mechanisms of judicial countering, their effectiveness, structural preconditions, and the plausibility of available judicial strategies. The article demonstrates the new frame on case studies of Colombia, South Africa and Poland.