Alicia Pastor Y Camarasa

Transnational Constitution Making

External Actors, Expertise, and Democratic Transition

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book examines the largely neglected, but crucial role of transnational actors in democratic constitution-making.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Seitenzahl: 212
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. Juni 2024
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm
• Gewicht: 580g
• ISBN-13: 9781032474014
• ISBN-10: 1032474017
• Artikelnr.: 70372210

Autorenporträt

Alicia Pastor y Camarasa is a researcher at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration at the Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice, and Public Administration of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Inhaltsangabe

About the author
Acknowledgements
List of acronyms and abbreviations
Introduction: demystifying 'We the People'
Understanding constitutional drafting as a transnational site
Transnational constitution-making in current debates
The porosity of constitutional legal orders
The transnational regulatory web
Epistemological and methodological considerations
Law and society approach to constitution-making
Scope of the present study
Limitations of the study
Why read this book
Chapter overview
PART 1 Crafting a new theory: from constituent power to the development
enterprise
1 The limits of constituent power for transnational constitution-making
Constituent power as a foundational concept for the liberal constitutional
state
Constitutions as a legal tool to limit government power
The people are sovereign
Constituent power as the foundation of the constitutional legal order
Inherent limitations of analysing transnational constitution-making through
the lens of constituent power
Between liberal constitutionalism and legal positivism
Implications for the analysis of external actors in constitution-making
processes
Towards an antifoundationalist approach to constitution-making
Conclusion
2 Unpacking liberal legalism
Law as an instrument for social change
Rational law to reach political and economic development
Weber, rationalisation, and the law
New bottles, old wine: the many shapes of legal rationality in the
development enterprise
The West as the ultimate stage of development
The colonial lineage of the modernisation rationale
From the 'mission civilisatrice' to development
Political development equals liberal democracy
Conclusion
3 The figure of the expert
Framing problems in the development enterprise
Recasting social problems as technical problems
Legal experts to the rescue
The expert as holder of technical knowledge
Knowledge from training
Knowledge from participation
The expert as political outsider
'Apolitical' ideology
At the service of the 'common good'
Apolitical ideology with political consequences
Conclusion
PART 2 External actors in constitution-making as a development enterprise
4 Tracing external actor involvement from decolonisation to post-cold war
constitution-making
Constitution-making as a tool to achieve political change
The constitution factory: from Whitehall to the White House
Post-cold war constitution-making as a tool for peace-building and
democratic governance
Liberal constitutions to achieve political development
Liberal constitutions as a signifier of 'civilisation'
The end of history and the liberal constitution
Conclusion
5 The expert as a key actor in transnational constitution-making
Involvement of constitutional experts in constitution-making processes
Drafting constitutions in the context of decolonisation
Development decades and the rise of US constitutional experts
The institutionalisation of transnational constitutional expertise
Justifying involvement with specific knowledge
Constitutional experts in the British Empire
The 'technician of democracy' as the expert
External actors as 'neutral' providers of constitutional expertise
Outside the political process
The discursive turn towards 'technicity'
Conclusion
Conclusion: towards a new theory of constitution-making
Law and society approach to constitution-making and the value of
descriptive work
Constitutions within regulatory webs: governing by objectives
The development enterprise: an antifoundationalist vision of
constitution-making
The politics of constitutional expertise
En route to a new normative theory
References
Index