Constitutionalism

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Constitutionalism, in its most general meaning, is "a complex of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of
behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from and is limited by
a body of fundamental law".[1]

A political organization is constitutional to the extent that it "contain[s] institutionalized

mechanisms of power control for the protection of the interests and liberties of the citizenry,
including those that may be in the minority".[2] As described by political scientist and
constitutional scholar David Fellman:

Constitutionalism is descriptive of a complicated concept, deeply imbedded in historical

experience, which subjects the officials who exercise governmental powers to the limitations of a
higher law. Constitutionalism proclaims the desirability of the rule of law as opposed to rule by
the arbitrary judgment or mere fiat of public officials…. Throughout the literature dealing with
modern public law and the foundations of statecraft the central element of the concept of
constitutionalism is that in political society government officials are not free to do anything they
please in any manner they choose; they are bound to observe both the limitations on power and
the procedures which are set out in the supreme, constitutional law of the community. It may
therefore be said that the touchstone of constitutionalism is the concept of limited government
under a higher law.[3]
Contents
 1 Usage
o 1.1 Descriptive
o 1.2 Prescriptive
o 1.3 Authority of government
o 1.4 Fundamental law empowering and limiting government
 2 Constitutionalism vs. constitutional questions
 3 Constitutional economics
 4 Examples
o 4.1 Descriptive
 4.1.1 United States
 4.1.2 United Kingdom
 4.1.3 Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
o 4.2 Prescriptive
 4.2.1 United States
 4.2.2 Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
 4.2.3 United Kingdom
 4.2.4 Dominican Republic
 5 Criticisms
 6 Islamic constitutionalism
 7 See also
 8 References
 9 Further reading
 10 External links

Usage
Constitutionalism has prescriptive and descriptive uses. Law professor Gerhard Casper captured
this aspect of the term in noting that: "Constitutionalism has both descriptive and prescriptive
connotations. Used descriptively, it refers chiefly to the historical struggle for constitutional
recognition of the people's right to 'consent' and certain other rights, freedoms, and privileges….
Used prescriptively … its meaning incorporates those features of government seen as the
essential elements of the … Constitution."[4]

Descriptive

One example of constitutionalism's descriptive use is law professor Bernard Schwartz's 5 volume
compilation of sources seeking to trace the origins of the U.S. Bill of Rights.[5] Beginning with
English antecedents going back to the Magna Carta (1215), Schwartz explores the presence and
development of ideas of individual freedoms and privileges through colonial charters and legal
understandings. Then, in carrying the story forward, he identifies revolutionary declarations and
constitutions, documents and judicial decisions of the Confederation period and the formation of
the federal Constitution. Finally, he turns to the debates over the federal Constitution's
ratification that ultimately provided mounting pressure for a federal bill of rights. While hardly
presenting a "straight-line," the account illustrates the historical struggle to recognize and
enshrine constitutional rights and principles in a constitutional order.

Prescriptive

In contrast to describing what constitutions are, a prescriptive approach addresses what a

constitution should be. As presented by Canadian philosopher Wil Waluchow, constitutionalism
embodies "the idea … that government can and should be legally limited in its powers, and that
its authority depends on its observing these limitations. This idea brings with it a host of vexing
questions of interest not only to legal scholars, but to anyone keen to explore the legal and
philosophical foundations of the state."[6] One example of this prescriptive approach was the
project of the National Municipal League[7] to develop a model state constitution.[8]

Authority of government

Whether reflecting a descriptive or prescriptive focus, treatments of the concept of

constitutionalism all deal with the legitimacy of government. One recent assessment of American
constitutionalism, for example, notes that the idea of constitutionalism serves to define what it is
that "grants and guides the legitimate exercise of government authority."[9] Similarly, historian
Gordon S. Wood described this American constitutionalism as "advanced thinking" on the nature
of constitutions in which the constitution was conceived to be "a" set of fundamental rules by
which even the supreme power of the state shall be governed.'"[10] Ultimately, American
constitutionalism came to rest on the collective sovereignty of the people – the source that
legitimized American governments.

Fundamental law empowering and limiting government

One of the most salient features of constitutionalism is that it describes and prescribes both the
source and the limits of government power. William H. Hamilton has captured this dual aspect
by noting that constitutionalism "is the name given to the trust which men repose in the power of
words engrossed on parchment to keep a government in order."[11]

Constitutionalism vs. constitutional questions

The study of constitutions is not necessarily synonymous with the study of constitutionalism.
Although frequently conflated, there are crucial differences. A discussion of this difference
appears in legal historian Christian G. Fritz's American Sovereigns: The People and America's
Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War,[12] a study of the early history of American
constitutionalism. Fritz notes that an analyst could approach the study of historic events focusing
on issues that entailed "constitutional questions" and that this differs from a focus that involves
"questions of constitutionalism."[13] Constitutional questions involve the analyst in examining
how the constitution was interpreted and applied to distribute power and authority as the new
nation struggled with problems of war and peace, taxation and representation. However,
[t]hese political and constitutional controversies also posed questions of constitutionalism – how
to identify the collective sovereign, what powers the sovereign possessed, and how one
recognized when that sovereign acted. Unlike constitutional questions, questions of
constitutionalism could not be answered by reference to given constitutional text or even judicial
opinions. Rather, they were open-ended questions drawing upon competing views Americans
developed after Independence about the sovereignty of the people and the ongoing role of the
people to monitor the constitutional order that rested on their sovereign authority.[13]

A similar distinction was drawn by British constitutional scholar A.V. Dicey in assessing
Britain's unwritten constitution. Dicey noted a difference between the "conventions of the
constitution" and the "law of the constitution." The "essential distinction" between the two
concepts was that the law of the constitution was made up of "rules enforced or recognised by
the Courts," making up "a body of 'laws' in the proper sense of that term." In contrast, the
conventions of the constitution consisted "of customs, practices, maxims, or precepts which are
not enforced or recognised by the Courts" yet they "make up a body not of laws, but of
constitutional or political ethics."[14]

Constitutional economics
Constitutionalism has been the subject of criticism for its previous ignorance of economic issues
but this criticism is now taken into account by the development of constitutional economics.

Constitutional economics is a field of economics and constitutionalism which describes and

analyzes the specific interrelationships between constitutional issues and the structure and
functioning of the economy. The term “constitutional economics” was used by American
economist – James M. Buchanan – as a name for a new academic sub-discipline. Buchanan
received in 1986 the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his “development of the contractual
and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision-making.”[15] Buchanan
rejects “any organic conception of the state as superior in wisdom, to the individuals who are its
members.” This philosophical position is, in fact, the very subject matter of constitutional
economics.

A constitutional economics approach allows for a combined economic and constitutional

analysis, helping to avoid a one-dimensional understanding. Buchanan believes that a
constitution, intended for use by at least several generations of citizens, must be able to adjust
itself for pragmatic economic decisions and to balance interests of the state and society against
those of individuals and their constitutional rights to personal freedom and private happiness.
Constitutional economics draws substantial inspiration from the reformist attitude which is
characteristic of Adam Smith’s vision, and that Buchanan’s concept can be considered the
modern-day counterpart to what Smith called “the science of legislation.” Concurrently with the
rise of academic research in the field of constitutional economics in the U.S. in the 1980s, the
Supreme Court of India for almost a decade had been encouraging public interest litigation on
behalf of the poor and oppressed by using a very broad interpretation of several articles of the
Indian Constitution.[16] This is a vivid example of a de facto practical application of the
methodology of constitutional economics.
The Russian school of constitutional economics was created in the early twenty-first century
with the idea that constitutional economics allows for a combined economic and constitutional
analysis in the legislative (especially budgetary) process, thus helping to overcome arbitrariness
in the economic and financial decision-making: for instance, when military expenses (and the
like) dwarf the budget spending on education and culture. In the English language, the word
“constitution” possesses a whole number of meanings, encompassing not only national
constitutions as such, but also charters of public organizations, unwritten rules of various clubs,
informal groups, etc. The Russian model of constitutional economics, originally intended for
transitional and developing countries, focuses entirely on the concept of state constitution. In
2006, the Russian Academy of Sciences officially recognized constitutional economics as a
separate academic sub-discipline.[17] Since many a country with transitional political and
economic system continues treating its constitution as an abstract legal document disengaged
from the economic policy of the state, the practice of constitutional economics becomes there a
decisive prerequisite for democratic development of the state and society.

Examples
Descriptive

Used descriptively, the concept of constitutionalism can refer chiefly to the historical struggle for
constitutional recognition of the people's right to "consent" and certain other rights, freedoms,
and privileges.[4]

United States

American constitutionalism has been defined as a complex of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of
behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government derives from the people, and
is limited by a body of fundamental law. These ideas, attitudes and patterns of behavior,
according to one analyst, derive from "a dynamic political and historical process rather than from
a static body of thought laid down in the eighteenth century".[18]

In U.S. history, constitutionalism—in both its descriptive and prescriptive sense—has

traditionally focused on the federal Constitution. Indeed, a routine assumption of many scholars
has been that understanding "American constitutionalism" necessarily entails the thought that
went into the drafting of the federal Constitution and the American experience with that
constitution since its ratification in 1789.[19]

There is a rich tradition of state constitutionalism that offers broader insight into
constitutionalism in the United States.[20] While state constitutions and the federal Constitution
operate differently as a function of federalism—the coexistence and interplay of governments at
both a national and state level—they all rest on a shared assumption that their legitimacy comes
from the sovereign authority of the people or popular sovereignty. This underlying premise—
embraced by the American revolutionaries with the Declaration of Independence—unites the
American constitutional tradition.[21] Both the experience with state constitutions before—and
after—the federal Constitution as well as the emergence and operation of the federal Constitution
reflect an on-going struggle over the idea that all governments in America rested on the
sovereignty of the people for their legitimacy.[22]

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is perhaps the best instance of constitutionalism in a country that has an
uncodified constitution. A variety of developments in seventeenth-century England, including
"the protracted struggle for power between king and Parliament was accompanied by an
efflorescence of political ideas in which the concept of countervailing powers was clearly
defined,"[23] led to a well-developed polity with multiple governmental and private institutions
that counter the power of the state.[24]

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

From the mid-sixteenth to the late eighteenth century, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
utilized the liberum veto, a form of unanimity voting rule, in its parliamentary deliberations. The
"principle of liberum veto played an important role in [the] emergence of the unique Polish form
of constitutionalism." This constraint on the powers of the monarch were significant in making
the "[r]ule of law, religious tolerance and limited constitutional government ... the norm in
Poland in times when the rest of Europe was being devastated by religious hatred and
despotism."[25]

Prescriptive

The prescriptive approach to constitutionalism addresses what a constitution should be. Two
observations might be offered about its prescriptive use.

 There is often confusion in equating the presence of a written constitution with the
conclusion that a state or polity is one based upon constitutionalism. As noted by David
Fellman constitutionalism "should not be taken to mean that if a state has a constitution,
it is necessarily committed to the idea of constitutionalism. In a very real sense… every
state may be said to have a constitution, since every state has institutions which are at the
very least expected to be permanent, and every state has established ways of doing
things." But even with a "formal written document labelled 'constitution' which includes
the provisions customarily found in such a document, it does not follow that it is
committed to constitutionalism…."[26]
 Often the word "constitutionalism" is used in a rhetorical sense – as a political argument
that equates the views of the speaker or writer with a preferred view of the constitution.
For instance, University of Maryland Constitutional History Professor Herman Belz's
critical assessment of expansive constitutional construction notes that "constitutionalism .
. . ought to be recognized as a distinctive ideology and approach to political life….
Constitutionalism not only establishes the institutional and intellectual framework, but it
also supplies much of the rhetorical currency with which political transactions are carried
on."[27] Similarly, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Louis Michael Seidman
noted as well the confluence of political rhetoric with arguments supposedly rooted in
constitutionalism. In assessing the "meaning that critical scholars attributed to
 constitutional law in the late twentieth century," Professor Seidman notes a "new order ...
characterized most prominently by extremely aggressive use of legal argument and
rhetoric" and as a result "powerful legal actors are willing to advance arguments
previously thought out-of-bounds. They have, in short, used legal reasoning to do exactly
what crits claim legal reasoning always does – put the lipstick of disinterested
constitutionalism on the pig of raw politics."[28]

United States

Starting with the proposition that "'Constitutionalism' refers to the position or practice that
government be limited by a constitution, usually written," analysts take a variety of positions on
what the constitution means. For instance, they describe the document as a document that may
specify its relation to statutes, treaties, executive and judicial actions, and the constitutions or
laws of regional jurisdictions. This prescriptive use of Constitutionalism is also concerned with
the principles of constitutional design, which includes the principle that the field of public action
be partitioned between delegated powers to the government and the rights of individuals, each of
which is a restriction of the other, and that no powers be delegated that are beyond the
competence of government.[29]

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Constitution of May 3, 1791, which historian Norman Davies calls "the first constitution of
its kind in Europe",[30] was in effect for only a year. It was designed to redress long-standing
political defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its traditional system of "Golden
Liberty". The Constitution introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility
(szlachta) and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the
worst abuses of serfdom.[citation needed]

United Kingdom

See also: Constitution of the United Kingdom

Constitutionalist was also a label used by some independent candidates in UK general elections
in the early 1920s. Most of the candidates were former Liberal Party members, and many of
them joined the Conservative Party soon after being elected. The best known Constitutionalist
candidate was Winston Churchill in the 1924 UK general election.[citation needed]

Dominican Republic

After the democratically elected government of president Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic
was deposed, the Constitutionalist movement was born in the country. As opposed to said
movement, the Anticonstitutionalist movement was also born. Juan Bosch had to depart to
Puerto Rico after he was deposed. His first leader was Colonel Rafael Tomás Fernández
Domínguez, and he wanted Bosch to come back to power once again. Colonel Fernández
Domínguez was exiled to Puerto Rico where Bosch was. The Constitutionalists had a new
leader: Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó.[citation needed]
Criticisms
Constitutionalism has been the subject of criticism by numerous anarchist thinkers. For example,
Murray Rothbard, who coined the term "anarcho-capitalism", attacked constitutionalism, arguing
that constitutions are incapable of restraining governments and do not protect the rights of
citizens from their governments. Rothbard wrote that:

[i]t is true that, in the United States, at least, we have a constitution that imposes strict limits on
some powers of government. But, as we have discovered in the past century, no constitution can
interpret or enforce itself; it must be interpreted by men. And if the ultimate power to interpret a
constitution is given to the government's own Supreme Court, then the inevitable tendency is for
the Court to continue to place its imprimatur on ever-broader powers for its own government.
Furthermore, the highly touted “checks and balances” and “separation of powers” in the
American government are flimsy indeed, since in the final analysis all of these divisions are part
of the same government and are governed by the same set of rulers.[31]

Legal scholar Jeremy Waldron contends that constitutionalism is often undemocratic:

Constitutions are not just about retraining and limiting power; they are about the empowerment
of ordinary people in a democracy and allowing them to control the sources of law and harness
the apparatus of government to their aspirations. That is the democratic view of constitutions, but
it is not the constitutionalist view.[...] Of course, it is always possible to present an alternative to
constitutionalism as an alternative form of constitutionalism: scholars talk of "popular
constitutionalism" or "democratic constitutionalism."[...] But I think it is worth setting out a stark
version of the antipathy between constitutionalism and democratic or popular self-government, if
only because that will help us to measure more clearly the extent to which a new and mature
theory of constitutional law takes proper account of the constitutional burden of ensuring that the
people are not disenfranchised by the very document that is supposed to give them their power.
[32]

Islamic constitutionalism
The scope and limits of constitutionalism in Muslim countries have attracted growing interest in
recent years. Authors such as Ann E. Mayer define Islamic constitutionalism as
"constitutionalism that is in some form based on Islamic principles, as opposed to
constitutionalism that has developed in countries that happen to be Muslim but that has not been
informed by distinctively Islamic principles."[33] However, the concrete meaning of the notion
remains contested among Muslim as well as Western scholars. Influential thinkers like
Mohammad Hashim Kamali[34] and Khaled Abou El Fadl,[35] but also younger ones like Asifa
Quraishi[36] and Nadirsyah Hosen[37] combine classic Islamic law with modern constitutionalism.
The constitutional changes initiated by the Arab spring movement have already brought into
reality many new hybrid models of Islamic constitutionalism.[38]

See also
  Classical liberalism
 Constitution
 Constitutional economics
 Constitutional law
 Judicial interpretation
 Libertarianism
 Natural and legal rights
 Philosophy of law
 Rule of law
 Rule according to higher law
 Separation of powers
 Social contract

References
1. Jump up ^ Don E. Fehrenbacher, Constitutions and Constitutionalism in the
Slaveholding South (University of Georgia Press, 1989) at p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8203-1119-
7.
2. Jump up ^ Gordon, Scott (1999). Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from
Ancient Athens to Today. Harvard University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-674-16987-5.
3. Jump up ^ Philip P. Wiener, ed., "Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of
Selected Pivotal Ideas", (David Fellman, "Constitutionalism"), vol 1, pp. 485, 491–92
(1973–74) ("Whatever particular form of government a constitution delineates, however,
it serves as the keystone of the arch of constitutionalism, except in those countries whose
written constitutions are mere sham. Constitutionalism as a theory and in practice stands
for the principle that there are—in a properly governed state—limitations upon those who
exercise the powers of government, and that these limitations are spelled out in a body of
higher law which is enforceable in a variety of ways, political and judicial. This is by no
means a modern idea, for the concept of a higher law which spells out the basic norms of
a political society is as old as Western civilization. That there are standards of rightness
which transcend and control public officials, even current popular majorities, represents a
critically significant element of man's endless quest for the good life.")
4. ^ Jump up to: a b Leonard Levy, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Constitution,
(Gerhard Casper, "Constitutionalism"), vol 2, p. 473 (1986) ISBN 978-0-02-864880-4.
5. Jump up ^ Bernard Schwartz, The Roots of the Bill of Rights (5 vols., Chelsea
House Publisher, 1980) ISBN 9780877542070.
6. Jump up ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Wil Waluchow
(Constitutionalism) (Intro Jan 2001 (revised Feb 20, 2007).
7. Jump up ^ Frank Mann Stewart, A Half Century of Municipal Reform: A History
of the National Municipal League Ch.2 (Univ. of California Press, 1950).
8. Jump up ^ "Model State Constitution."
9. Jump up ^ Christian G. Fritz, American Sovereigns: The People and America's
Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2008) at p. 1
ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3.
10. Jump up ^ Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1770-1787
(W.W.Norton & Co. 1969) at p. 268 ISBN 0-393-31040 (quoting Demophilus, Genuine
Principles, at p. 4> (Demophilus [George Bryan?]: the Genuine Principles of the Ancient
Saxon, Or English [,] Constitution).
11. Jump up ^ Walton H. Hamilton, Constitutionalism. in Edwin R.A. Seligman et
al. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillian 1931) at p. 255.
12. Jump up ^ (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
13. ^ Jump up to: a b Christian G. Fritz, American Sovereigns: The People and America's
Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2008) at p. 6
ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3.
14. Jump up ^ Dicey, A. V., Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution,
8th ed. (London: Macmillan 1914) (Part III: The Connection between the law of he
constitution and the conventions of the constitution; Ch 14.
15. Jump up ^
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1986/buchanan.html
16. Jump up ^ Jeremy Cooper, Poverty and Constitutional Justice, in Philosophy of
Law: Classic and Contemporary Readings, edited by Larry May and Jeff Brown, Wiley-
Blackwell, UK, 2010
17. Jump up ^ Peter Barenboim, Natalya Merkulova. "The 25th Anniversary of
Constitutional Economics: The Russian Model and Legal Reform in Russia, in The
World Rule of Law Movement and Russian Legal Reform", edited by Francis Neate and
Holly Nielsen, Justitsinform, Moscow (2007).
18. Jump up ^ Stephen M. Griffin, "American Constitutionalism: From Theory to
Politics" (Princeton University Press, 1996) at p. 5. ISBN 978-0-691-03404-1.
19. Jump up ^ For the assumptions by historians, political scientists, and lawyers
that have contributed to a view of constitutionalism essentially connected and confined to
the U.S. Constitution, see Christian G. Fritz, "Fallacies of American Constitutionalism ,"
35 Rutgers Law Journal (2004), 1327–69. See also, Christian G. Fritz, American
Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War
(Cambridge University Press, 2008) at p. 284 ("Invariably, the state constitutional
tradition is deemed less authentic because of its departure from the federal model. This
has led to the assumption that one need only study the federal Constitution to discover
what American constitutionalism was then and is today.") ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3.
20. Jump up ^ G. Alan Tarr, Understanding State Constitutions (Princeton Univ.
Press, 1998) and John J. Dinan, The American State Constitutional Tradition (Univ. Press
of Kansas, 2006).
21. Jump up ^ Paul K. Conkin, Self-Evident Truths: Being a Discourse on the
Origins & Development of the First Principles of American Government—Popular
Sovereignty, Natural Rights, and Balance & Separation of Powers (Indiana Univ. Press,
1974), 52 (describing "the almost unanimous acceptance of popular sovereignty at the
level of abstract principle"); Edmund S. Morgan, "The Problem of Popular Sovereignty,"
in Aspects of American Liberty: Philosophical, Historical and Political (The American
Philosophical Society, 1977), 101 (concluding the American Revolution "confirmed and
completed the subordination of government to the will of the people"); Willi Paul Adams,
The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State
Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era (University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 137
 (asserting that statements of the "principle" of the people's sovereignty "expressed the
very heart of the consensus among the victors of 1776").
22. Jump up ^ Christian G. Fritz, American Sovereigns: The People and America's
Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2008) at p.
284 (Observing that from the Revolutionary era to the period before the Civil War
"Americans continued to wrestle with what it meant that their national as well as state
governments rested on the sovereignty of the people") ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3.
23. Jump up ^ Gordon, Scott (1999). Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from
Ancient Athens to Today. Harvard University Press. pp. 5, 223–83, 327–57. ISBN 0-674-
16987-5.
24. Jump up ^ Bagehot, Walter (1867). The English Constitution. Chapman and
Hall. pp. 2, 348. (Bagehot noted his intent to correct mistaken views of the British
constitution, including whether the constitution was "laid down as a principle of the
English polity, that in it the legislative, the executive, and the judicial powers, are quite
divided….” )
25. Jump up ^ Rohac, Dalibor (June 2008). "The unanimity rule and religious
fractionalisation in the Polish-Lithuanian Republic". Constitutional Political Economy
(Springer) 19 (2): 111–28. doi:10.1007/s10602-008-9037-5. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
26. Jump up ^ Philip P. Wiener, ed., "Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of
Selected Pivotal Ideas", (David Fellman, "Constitutionalism"), vol 1, p. 485 (1973–74).
27. Jump up ^ Herman Belz, "A Living Constitution or Fundamental Law?
American Constitutionalism in Historical Perspective" (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
Inc. 1998) at pp. 148–49 (Belz further argues: "Constitutionalism shapes political life in a
variety of ways. Constitutional principles can become matters of commitment and belief
possessing intrinsic value that motivate political action. . . . When citizens and governing
officials internalize constitutional values, acting out of fidelity to law rather than
expediency, constitutionalism gives direction to political life. Constitutionalism has a
configurative effect also in providing the forms, rhetoric, and symbols by which politics
is carried on. Political groups and individuals ordinarily try to choose courses of action
that are consistent with or required by the Constitution. They do so not because they are
in each instance committed to the constitutional principle or value at issue . . . [but]
because they know that the public takes the Constitution seriously, believing that it
embodies fundamental values and formal procedures that are the touchstone of political
legitimacy. In American politics the Constitution is a justifying concept, and groups that
invoke constitutional arguments do so, from their own perspective perhaps and in an
immediate sense, instrumentally. Considered from an external and long-range view in
relation to the polity as a whole, however, reliance on constitutional principles and rules
is normative and noninstrumental. In this way constitutionalism shapes political events")
ISBN 978-0-8476-8643-8.
28. Jump up ^ Louis Michael Seidman, "Critical Constitutionalism Now", 75
Fordham Law Review pp. 575, 586 (Nov. 2006).
29. Jump up ^ James Madison, in his remarks introducing the Bill of Rights, 8 June
1789, Annals 1:424–50. Link
30. Jump up ^ Davies, Norman (1996). Europe: A History. Oxford University Press.
p. 699. ISBN 0-19-820171-0.
 31. Jump up ^ Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
(1978), p. 48.
32. Jump up ^ Waldron, Jeremy (2009). "Constitutionalism – A Skeptical View". In
Christiano, Thomas; Christman, John. Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy.
p. 279.
33. Jump up ^ Ann E. Mayer, Conundrums in Constitutionalism: Islamic
Monarchies in an Era of Transition, 1 UCLA J. Islamic & Near E.L. 183 (Spring /
Summer, 2002).
34. Jump up ^ Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries:
A Contemporary Perspective of Islamic Law, in: Rainer Grote and Tilmann Röder (eds.),
Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity, Oxford
University Press, Oxford/New York 2011.
35. Jump up ^ Khaled Abou El Fadl, Shariah and Constitutionalism in: Rainer Grote
and Tilmann Röder (eds.), Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries: Between Upheaval
and Continuity, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 2011.
36. Jump up ^ Asifa Quraishi, The Separation of Powers in the Tradition of Muslim
Governments, in: Rainer Grote and Tilmann Röder (eds.), Constitutionalism in Islamic
Countries: Between Upheaval and Continuity, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New
York 2011.
37. Jump up ^ Nadirsyah Hosen, "In search of Islamic Constitutionalism", American
Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Volume 21, No. 2, 2004, 23 foll.
38. Jump up ^ See, e.g. the monitoring project "Constitutional Reform in Arab
Countries", http://www.mpil.de/red/crac.

Further reading
 Sandefur, Thomothy (2008). "Constitutionalism". In Hamowy, Ronald. The
Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 100–3.
ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.

External links
 Constitutionalism entry by Wil Waluchow in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
 Philip P. Wiener, ed., "Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal
Ideas", (David Fellman, "Constitutionalism"), vol 1, pp. 485, 491–92 (1973–74).
 National Humanities Institute
 MJC Vile Constitutionalism and the Separation of Powers (1967, Indianapolis: Liberty
Fund, 1998) Second edition.
 "Economics and the Rule of Law" The Economist (2008-03-13).
 Middle East Constitutional Forum
 The Social and Political Foundations of Constitutions Foundation for Law, Justice and
Society programme

Categories:
  Constitutional law
 Philosophy of law
 Theories of law

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