Présentation de l’éditeur

“Constitution” is a rich term in Western political culture, encompassing political and juridical doctrine as well as government practices through the ages. This volume examines “constitutional moments” in history, those occasions or episodes when significant steps were taken in the definition or redefinition of polities. Their actors were writers or politicians, rulers or ruled, who found inspiration in a distant past or instead looked towards a future to be drawn anew. This book sheds light on such moments from Ancient Greece to the present day, mostly in Europe but also in the Ottoman world and the Americas, thereby uncovering a revealing variety of constitutional thinking and action throughout history.

Contributors are: Jon Arrieta, Niall Bond, Luc Brisson, Peter Cholakov, Nora Chonowski, Angela De Benedictis, F. Sinem Eryilmaz, Hakon Evju, Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, Javier Fernández Sebastián, Merieke Gebhardt, Xavier Gil, Mark J. Hill, Ferenc Hörcher, Jaska Kainulainen, Thomas Lorman, Adriana Luna-Fabritius, Ere Nokkala, Brian Kjaer Olesen, András Pap, Nikola Regent, Alberto Mariano Rodríguez Martínez, Pablo Sánchez León, José Reis Santos, and Ersin Yildiz.

Sommaire

Introduction
Author: Xavier Gil

Part 1 Ancient and Medieval Times

Chapter 1 The Critic of the Family (oikos) at the Foundations of Plato’s Political Doctrine. Myth and Reality
Author: Luc Brisson

Chapter 2 The Influence of Roman Law on Medieval Bulgarian Legislation. Sources and Developments of the Main Constitutional Issues
Author: Petar Cholakov

Part 2 Renaissance and Early Modern Era

Section 1 Myths and Politics

Chapter 3 Biscay in the Spanish Monarchy. Myth, History, and Law in the Making of Its Constitutional Regime (14th to 17th Centuries)
Author: Jon Arrieta

Chapter 4 The Myth of Sobrarbe between Old Europe and the New World. A Reassessment
Author: Angela De Benedictis

Chapter 5 Law, Wisdom, and Politics in Making Süleyman “The Lawgiver”
Author: Fatma Sinem Eryılmaz

Section 2 Governance and Change

Chapter 6 After Revolts. Moments for Constitutional Refashioning in Early Modern Europe
Author: Xavier Gil

Chapter 7 Accommodatio in the Jesuit Constitutions
Author: Jaska Kainulainen

Chapter 8 The Monarchical Moment. Constitutionalism, Lutheran Political Thought, and the Rise of Danish Absolutism
Author: Brian Kjær Olesen

Chapter 9 A Model Republican Constitution? Guicciardini vs. Machiavelli on the Roman Example
Author: Nikola Regent

Chapter 10 The Union of Utrecht. An Unfinished Constitutional Definition between Federalism and Particularism in the Low Countries (1579–1621)
Author: Alberto Mariano Rodríguez Martínez

Part 3 The Enlightenment

Chapter 11 Ancient Constitutionalism in the Age of Enlightenment. The Case of Denmark-Norway
Author: Håkon Evju

Chapter 12 Rousseau and Poland. Pragmatic Rebirth Rather than Idealistic Reforms?
Author: Mark J. Hill

Chapter 13 The Lawgiver in Eighteenth-Century Neapolitan Political Thought. Charting Mediterranean Liberalism
Author: Adriana Luna-Fabritius

Chapter 14 From Masterpiece of Modern Legislation to an Aristocratic Oligarchy. Contemporary European Appraisals of the Swedish Constitution of the Age of Liberty (1719–1772)
Author: Ere Nokkala

Part 4 The Nineteenth Century

Chapter 15 “Dark Spots of Our History”. Martínez Marina and Foundational Myths in Eighteenth-Century Spain
Author: Pablo Fernández Albaladejo

Chapter 16 The Metamorphoses of a Historical Constitution. Longue durée Developments in Nineteenth-Century Hungarian Constitutional and Political Thought
Authors: Ferenc Hörcher and Thomas Lorman

Chapter 17 Constitutional Imagination and “Catholic” Political Anthropology. The Grammar of the Mixed Constitution in the Mid-19th Century Crisis of Spanish Liberalism
Author: Pablo Sánchez León

Part 5 The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Chapter 18 The Weimar Constitutional Moment. Constitutionalism, Theoretical Debate and Political Conflict
Author: Ersin Yildiz

Chapter 19 The Portuguese Estado Novo Constitutional Process as a Model for Transitioning to Authoritarianism in the Europe of the New Order
Author: José Reis Santos

Chapter 20 The Framing of a Liberal Democratic Constitution in Post-War Western Germany
Author: Niall Bond

Chapter 21 From 1989 to 2010. Founding Myths and Moments of the Liberal and the Illiberal Constitutional Revolutions in Hungary
Authors: Nóra Chronowski and András L. Pap

Part 6 Theoretical Issues

Chapter 22 An Unbroken Continuity? Constitutional Crises and Historical Imagination
Author: Javier Fernández-Sebastián

Chapter 23 The Dirty Secret of New Beginnings. Founding a Democracy between Nothing and Narration
Author: Mareike Gebhardt