The Project of Constitutional Sociology: Irritating Nation State Constitutionalism

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Trends of constitutionalisation can be identified beyond the nation state. They follow two different directions. Outside the limits of the nation state, constitutions emerge in the institutions of international politics, and they emerge simultaneously outside the limits of politics in the ‘private’ sectors of global society. Transnationalisation confronts constitutional sociology with three different challenges: first, to analyse empirically ongoing constitutionalisation processes beyond the nation state, second, to develop a theory of transnational societal constitutionalism, and third, to formulate sociological preconditions for normative perspectives in politics and law. Constitutional law is now confronted with the task of developing constitutional rules that are in a position to respond to legal dilemmas that transnational regimes are facing. In transnational regimes the motivation for self-limitation is mostly missing. Obviously, it is only the changes in the internal constitution of transnational regimes that are able meet the demands of civil society, courts and state politics. Thus, there are no alternatives to an experimental and penetrating constitutionalisation.

About the author: Günther Teubner – Professor Emeritus, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Citation: Teubner G. (2016) Kontury konstitutsionnoy sotsiologii: preodolenie isklyuchitel'nosti gosudarstvennogo konstitutsionalizma [The Project of Constitutional Sociology: Irritating Nation State Constitutionalism]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, no.1, pp.41–55. (In Russian).

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