Paper Titles & Abstracts

This paper examines the development of constitutionalism in dual (vertical and horizontal) separation of power systems (Kelemen, 2004; Zweifel, 2002), focusing on the link between political mobilization and constitutional change. The analysis builds on the theoretical framework of "political constitutionalism", devised by Richard Bellamy (2007), which argues that constitutional development is best understood as a political as well as legal phenomenon. The use of political constitutionalism enables, the paper claims, a novel analysis of the process of EU constitutionalization (Weiler, 1991) in a comparative light. This entails examining analogous issues of constitutionalization and associated problems of legitimizing constitutional change via political representation and citizen mobilization in the US and Swiss federal experiences. The constitutional experience of EU integration is thus contrasted with similar issues arising in the course of American and Swiss political development. In both the latter, important constitutional issues about the dual separation of powers were resolved through presidentialization and direct democracy respectively. Following Bellamy, these are shown to instances of political constitutionalism in action. Current EU constitutional debates are then discussed in terms of what evidence there is for an equivalent form of political constitutionalism. To this end, the applicability of not only presidentialization and direct democracy but also a sui generis notion of "politicization" are analysed to determine the potential for political constitutionalism in the EU. This reveals how, in comparison with US and Swiss political development, the constitutionalization process of the EU has not been linked to political mobilization. Consequently, for all the success of legal constitutionalism in the contemporary EU, this system has yet to find a way of engendering political constitutionalism to legitimise change in the EU constitutional order.