Between civic and legal constitutionalism

Dynamics of Poland’s constitution-making projects of the 1990s

Egileak

  • Emilia T. Kowalewska Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences

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https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1142

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Constitutionalism, post-communism, constitution making, democratic legitimacy, Poland, civic constitutionalism, legal constitutionalism

Laburpena

This study explores the way in which the notion of competing constitutionalisms illustrates and explains the evolution of Poland’s institutional landscape during and following the transition from communist rule. The paper considers the impact of variants of constitutionalism on constitution-making processes. While recent threats to the rule of law in Poland illustrate challenges to the consolidation of democratic constitutionalism several decades after political transformation, this paper traces processes by which citizens and political elites accept or reject the legitimacy of proposed constitutional frameworks, institutions and norms. The constitution-drafting project supported by the Solidarność trade union facilitates an original and comparative examination of these topics. Applying the concept of competing constitutionalisms to the analysis of previously unstudied archival, text, narrative interview and survey data, the study exposes the tension between the politics of constitution making on the one hand, and the symbolic, substantive and axiological aspects of constitutionalism on the other.

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Researcher at the Department of Global Security and Strategic Studies of the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. Affiliated with the Institute of Philosophy & Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Graduate of the University of Cambridge (Law); University of Lancaster (Society and Politics); and University of Notre Dame (LLM in International Human Rights Law). Former Expert/Consultant at OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, specialised on human rights, anti-trafficking, freedom of assembly. Teaching experience in transitional justice, rule of law and institutional development. Further research interests include socio-legal approaches to constitutionalism, collective memory.

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Kowalewska, E. T. (2020) «Between civic and legal constitutionalism: Dynamics of Poland’s constitution-making projects of the 1990s», Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 10(4), or. 903–931. doi: 10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1142.