Bachelor
2024/2025
Constitutionalism and Democracy
Type:
Elective course (Political Science and World Politics)
Area of studies:
Political Science
When:
3 year, 4 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Open to:
students of all HSE University campuses
Instructors:
András Gál
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Course Syllabus
Abstract
This course focuses on the concept of constitutionalism, the most important notions associated with it (like the limitation of government, separation of powers, rule of law, fundamental rights, constitutional adjudication, etc.) and their relationship with various normative conceptions of democracy. On the one hand, the course aims to provide an introduction to the most important concepts related to constitutionalism, and to analyze them from normative and empirical perspectives. On the other hand, the aim is also to engage in a critical dialogue with the meaning and assessment of the introduced concepts.Every topic will be discussed through normative analysis, examples from comparative law and by scrutinising the relevance of each topic from the perspective of comparative politics. The ten topics can be clustered in four groups. The first two sessions are dealing with the notion of constitutionalism, its legal and political aspects as well as the possible sources of constitutional legitimacy. The following two sessions focus on the definition and various forms of rights, together with the controversies surrounding them, presenting the individualistic perspective of constitutionalism. The third block, also consisting of two topics deals with the various institutional practices supporting constitutionalism, namely the rule of law and constitutional adjudication. Finally, the last four topics all stress the limits of constitutionalism through the questions of emergency regulations; constitutional erosion; militant democracy; and global constitutionalism.