Conclusion

Summary

This book has sought to illustrate how, through its history, constitutional law has developed in complex conjunction with imperialism. From the beginning, constitutional law took shape as an internal organizational structure that allowed states to adapt their functions to the pressures of an international society increasingly defined by imperialism, and it formed a mechanism for creating governmental legitimacy that was strongly connected to military necessities. This character of constitutional law originated in the intensification of imperialism after circa 1750, when national governments were forced to increase domestic military support for their actions. To achieve this, governments established immediate individual linkages with their subjects and conducted processes of vertical integration in their societies, which reduced the social importance of local and religious bodies. These processes were usually consolidated by constitutional order: constitutions served both to organize the vertical integration of society and to soften or at least control the lateral conflicts that such integration engendered.