TRANSFORMATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN THE EARLY TWENTYFIRST CENTURY

Abstract

The text analyzes the transformations of constitutional law as a university subject and legal field in France and Europe. It begins with the Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century. However, the evolution of the subject was rather checkered: due to its political nature, constitutional law was abolished and reinstated, depending on the political climate. There was neither a linear development nor consistant content as a university subject. It was first studied as institutional law, but then fell under the auspices of political science, only to be positivized after the establishment of constitutional courts. The term constitution also underwent transformation, no longer confined to merely organizing governance, but ordering all of society. While the field of application of the constitution expanded, it was undermined by strengthening individualism and communitarism. Predicaments also arose regarding the possibility of existence of a constitution without or outside the state, specifically in the context of the European Union. Finally, the text notes that the ideological use of the term democracy obscures the fact that majoritarian democracy might possibly be obsolete, and that other forms of legitimacy are gaining in significance.