Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T07:51:23.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Global constitutionalism in historical perspective: Towards refined tools for international constitutional histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2014

THOMAS MÜLLER
THOMAS MÜLLER*
Affiliation:
Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article raises the question of how the evolution of constitutional structures in international history can be conceptualized and narrated. This question is nurtured by the divergent historical accounts found in the literature on global constitutionalism and the historical-comparative literature on international societies. Although both literatures have so far largely ignored each other, they share a number of common conceptual problems and should therefore engage in a dialogue. The article sketches out the contours of such a dialogue to reveal the insufficient sensitivity of both literatures to the historicity of constitutional structures as well as their inherent political dimension. This article proposes to conceptualize constitutional structures as a set of fundamental and prioritized principles and rules that serves as a framework for the self-ordering of relations between polities. It thereby differentiates between a meta-constitutional and a legal-constitutional dimension and proposes seven analytical tools for more nuanced and empirically sensitive constitutional histories of interpolity relations. Such a historical perspective helps to account for the conditions of emergence as well as to delineate the novelty of contemporary global constitutionalism.

Keywords

constitutional structuresEnglish constitutionfundamental institutionsinternational societysocial contract
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 71 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnett, Michael and Duvall, Raymond. 2005. “Power in International Politics.” International Organization 59(1):39–75.Google Scholar
Bell, Duncan, ed. 2007. Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bogdanor, Vernon, ed. 2003. The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brunkhorst, Hauke. 2012. “The Co-Evolution of Cosmopolitan and National Statehood: Preliminary Theoretical Considerations on the Historical Evolution of Constitutionalism.” Cooperation and Conflict 47(2):176–99.Google Scholar
Bull, Hedley. 1977. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick. 2010. Empires in World History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Burke, Edmund. 1967 [1790]. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Introduction by A. J. Grieve). London: Dent & Sons.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry. 2004. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry. 2010. “The English School as a New Systems Theory of World Politics.” In New Systems Theories of World Politics, edited by Albert, Mathias, Cederman, Lars-Erik and Wendt, Alexander, 195–219. Houndmills, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry and Albert, Mathias. 2010. “Differentiation: A Sociological Approach to International Relations Theory.” European Journal of International Relations 16(3):315–37.Google Scholar
Clark, Ian. 2005. Legitimacy in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Ian. 2007. International Legitimacy and World Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jean L. 2004. “Whose Sovereignty? Empire versus International Law.” Ethics & International Affairs 18(3):1–24.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jean L. 2012. Globalization and Sovereignty: Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Carvalho, Benjamin, Leira, Halvard and Hobson, John M.. 2011. “The Big Bangs of IR: The Myths That Your Teachers Still Tell You about 1648 and 1919.” Millennium 39(3):735–58.Google Scholar
Deudney, Daniel H. 2007. Bounding Power: Republican Security Theory from the Polis to the Global Village. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Donnelly, Jack. 2006. The Constitutional Structure of International Societies. Unpublished paper available at <http://mysite.du.edu/∼jdonnell/papers.htm> accessed 3 January 2013.Google Scholar
Donnelly, Jack. 2012. “The Differentiation of International Societies: An Approach to Structural International Theory.” European Journal of International Relations 18(1):151–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, Michael W. 2012. “Dialectics of a Global Constitution: The Struggle over the UN Charter.” European Journal of International Relations 18(4):601–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunne, Tim. 1998. Inventing International Society: A History of the English School. Basingstoke: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., eds. 2009a. Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P. 2009b. “A Functional Approach to International Constitutionalization.” In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., 3–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 2000. Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fassbender, Bardo. 2009a. The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.Google Scholar
Fassbender, Bardo. 2009b. “Rediscovering a Forgotten Constitution: Notes on the Place of the UN Charter in the International Legal Order.” In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Jeffrey, L. Dunoff and Trachtman, Joel P., 133–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fischer-Lescano, Andreas. 2005. Globalverfassung. Die Geltungsbegründung der Menschenrechte. Weilerswist: Velbrück.Google Scholar
Grewe, Wilhelm G. 1988. Epochen der Völkerrechtsgeschichte, 2nd edn. Baden-Baden: Nomos.Google Scholar
Halberstam, David. 2009. “Constitutional Heterarchy: The Centrality of Conflict in the European Union and the United States.” In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., 326–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Havercroft, Jonathan. 2012. “Was Westphalia ‘All That’? Hobbes, Bellarmine, and the Norm of Non-Intervention.” Global Constitutionalism 1(1):120–40.Google Scholar
Holsti, Kalevi J. 2004. Taming the Sovereigns: Institutional Change in International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 1953 [1748]. “Of the Original Contract.” In David Hume’s Political Essays, edited by Hendel, Charles W., 43–63. New York, NY: Liberal Arts Press.Google Scholar
Hurrell, Andrew. 2007. On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Keene, Edward. 2002. Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koskenniemi, Martti. 2007. “Constitutionalism as Mindset: Reflections on Kantian Themes about International Law and Globalization.” Theoretical Inquiries in Law 8(1):1–27.Google Scholar
Kleinlein, Thomas. 2012. Konstitutionalisierung im Völkerrecht: Konstruktion und Elemente einer idealistischen Völkerrechtslehre. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Loughlin, Martin. 2007. “Constituent Power Subverted: From English Constitutional Argument to British Constitutional Practice.” In The Paradox of Constitutionalism: Constituent Power and Constitutional Form, edited by Loughlin, Martin and Walker, Neil, 27–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Loughlin, Martin. 2010. “What is Constitutionalisation?” In The Twilight of Constitutionalism?, edited by Dobner, Petra and Loughlin, Martin, 47–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lyon, Ann. 2003. Constitutional History of the United Kingdom. London: Routledge-Cavendish.Google Scholar
Mazower, Mark. 2009. No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McDougal, Myres S., Lasswell, Harold D. and Reisman, W. Michael. 1967. “The World Constitutive Process of Authoritative Decision.” Journal of Legal Education 19(3):253–300 and 19(4):403–37.Google Scholar
Nicolaïdis, Kalypso. 2004. “The New Constitution as European ‘demoi-cracy’?” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 7(1):76–93.Google Scholar
Onuf, Nicholas. 1994. “The Constitution of International Society.” European Journal of International Law 5:1–19.Google Scholar
Osiander, Andreas. 1994. The States System of Europe, 1640–1990: Peace-making and the Conditions of International Stability. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Osterhammel, Jürgen and Petersson, Niels P.. 2007. Geschichte der Globalisierung, 4th edn. Munich: C. H. Beck.Google Scholar
Paulus, Andreas. 2009. “The International Legal System as a Constitution.” In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., 69–109. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Anne. 2006. “Compensatory Constitutionalism: The Function and Potential of Fundamental International Norms and Structures.” Leiden Journal of International Law 19(3):579–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Anne. 2012. “Are we Moving towards Constitutionalization of the World Community?” In Realizing Utopia: The Future of International Law, edited by Cassese, Antonio, 118–35. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Anne and Armingeon, Klaus. 2009. “Introduction: Global Constitutionalism from an Interdisciplinary Perspective.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 16(2):385–95.Google Scholar
Philpott, Daniel. 1999. “Westphalia, Authority, and International Society.” Political Studies 47(3):566–89.Google Scholar
Philpott, Daniel. 2001. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pocock, John G. A. 1957. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reisman, W. Michael. 2000. “Unilateral Action and the Transformations of the World Constitutive Process: The Special Problem of Humanitarian Intervention.” European Journal of International Law 11(1):3–18.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 1997. “The Constitutional Structure of International Society and the Nature of Fundamental Institutions.” International Organization 51(4):555–89.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 1999. The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 2011. “Struggles for Individual Rights and the Expansion of the International System.” International Organization 65(2):207–42.Google Scholar
Ringmar, Eric. 2012. “Performing International Systems: Two East-Asian Alternatives to the Westphalian Order.” International Organization 66(1):1–25.Google Scholar
Schwöbel, Christine E. J. 2011. Global Constitutionalism in International Legal Perspective. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.Google Scholar
Simpson, Gerry. 2004. Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie and Burke-White, William. 2002. “An International Constitutional Moment.” Harvard International Law Journal 43(1):1–22.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther. 2010. “Fragmented Foundations: Societal Constitutionalism beyond the Nation State.” In The Twilight of Constitutionalism?, edited by Dobner, Petra and Loughlin, Martin, 327–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tharoor, Shashi. 2011. “Security Council Reform: Past, Present, and Future.” Ethics & International Affairs 25(4):397–406.Google Scholar
Thornhill, Chris. 2011. A Sociology of Constitutions: Constitutions and State Legitimacy in Historical-Sociological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tully, James. 2007. “The Imperialism of Modern Constitutional Democracy.” In The Paradox of Constitutionalism: Constituent Power and Constitutional Form, edited by Loughlin, Martin and Walker, Neil, 315–38. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, Neil. 2009a. Multilevel Constitutionalism: Looking beyond the German Debate (LSE ‘Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper Series No. 08/2009) available at <http://www2.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/LEQS/LEQSPaper8Walker.pdf> accessed 3 January 2013.Google Scholar
Walker, Neil. 2009b. “Reframing EU Constitutionalism.” In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance, edited by Dunoff, Jeffrey L. and Trachtman, Joel P., 149–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Watson, Adam. 1992. The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1998. “On Constitution and Causation in International Relations.” Review of International Studies 24(5):101–17.Google Scholar
Wicks, Elizabeth. 2006. The Evolution of a Constitution: Eight Key Moments in British Constitutional History. Oxford: Hart.Google Scholar
Wiener, Antje. 2011. Global Constitutionalism: Mapping an Emerging Field. Paper for the Conference Constitutionalism in a New Key? Cosmopolitan, Pluralist and Public Reason-Oriented, Berlin, WZB and Humboldt University, 28–29 January 2011 available at <http://cosmopolis.wzb.eu/content/programs/conkey_Wiener_Mapping-Field.pdf> accessed 3 January 2013.+accessed+3+January+2013.>Google Scholar
Wiener, Antje, Lang, Anthony F. Jr., Tully, James, Maduro, Miguel Poiares and Kumm, Mathias. 2012. “Editorial: Global Constitutionalism: Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law.” Global Constitutionalism 1(1):1–15.Google Scholar