Undergraduate Course: Advanced Comparative Constitutional Law (LAWS10291)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This is an advanced public law course which explores contemporary themes of comparative constitutional studies through a multidisciplinary method in the context of the current realignment of the global order from unipolarity to multipolarity. It seeks to provide a solid academic grounding for future constitutional comparativists in relation to the concept of constitutionalism as well as multiple normative conceptions of constitutionalism. |
| Course description |
Academic Description:
Comparative constitutional studies is the field of scholarship and practice that is concerned with understanding all aspects of the theory and practice of constitutional government from a comparative perspective. Interdisciplinarity within the field can be particularly close between law, politics, and history, each discipline addressing, as they do, the formal, informal, and cultural dimensions of constitutional systems. Comparative constitutional studies is a relatively new field, with its origins in the international order established after World War II and the start of decolonisation, and growing significantly after the end of the Cold War. In the post-Cold war era, in which it was widely assumed that liberal constitutionalism had 'won' the battle of ideas over its normative competitors, more than half of the countries of the world has redrawn or significantly reformed their legal constitutions. In this period, both comparative constitutional studies and practice were underpinned by the core set of normative and institutional prescriptions provided by liberalism, but which were now taken as precepts of a universal constitutionalism around which there would eventually be global normative convergence.
If comparative constitutional studies took shape in this specific context of the ascendancy of liberal constitutionalism, the stability of its core assumptions are now increasingly shaky, due to a series of recent developments that together represent the first fundamental global realignment of power and ideas since the end of the Cold War. The 'postliberal' second Trump presidency has moved with speed to dismantle critical aspects of the Pax Americana, signalling the end of America¿s commitments in terms of both ideology and resources to the international framework that has sustained comparative constitutional studies. To this we may add the UK's exit from the legal order of the EU and the wider discourse of the European Project, Europe's own version of liberal legal idealism. The emergence of a new multipolar world is also heralded by the rise of India and China in Asia, and other regional contenders such as Iran, Turkey, and Russia.
Multipolarity represents a major challenge to the assumptions of comparative constitutional studies. It will not only have to accept that constitutional development is no longer determined by a linear teleological pathway to liberal constitutional democracy, but also admit within its empirical and analytical remit non-liberal and non-democratic political regime-types that are otherwise effective, viable, and thickly culturally grounded. The global realignment of power and ideas currently underway is historic, not episodic. It marks the end of the post-Cold War era and the Pax Americana (and the European Project as understood until Brexit), and with it, the hitherto unassailable status of liberal modernism as the global teleology of constitutionalism. It therefore also places comparative constitutional studies on a cusp. If 1945-1991 was the field's infancy and childhood, and after 1991 saw its adolescent growth spurt, the present demands its transition to adult maturity.
The purpose of this course is to thoroughly and critically interrogate the themes outlined above, with a view to preparing a new generation of comparative constitutional lawyers for the fundamental changes that accompany the multi-polarisation of global geopolitics.
Outline Content:
The course is organised in three parts: (a) comparative approaches (which defines the field, introduces methods, and establishes an understanding of the core concept: constitutionalism); (b) types and styles of constitutionalism (which provides a wide overview of some of the main competing normative conceptions of constitutionalism in the emerging multipolar world); and (c) constitutional design (which introduces students to the main areas of structures of government, rights, and amendment in the theory and practice of constitution-making).
Student Learning Experience:
The course will be taught through 10 two-hour seminars. Students will be expected to engage with challenging materials, ideas, and robust (but respectful) debate and disagreement, through pre-reading set materials and engaging in collective discussion in class.
Please note that classes for this course will be jointly taught with Masters level students. Although students at both levels will study the same course materials, assessments will be graded according to the relevant benchmark appropriate to the level of study.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by 100% coursework: 4,000 word essay
The formative exercise for this course will be a short essay of 1500 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography). |
| Feedback |
Feedback on the formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The course organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand the distinctive field of comparative constitutional law; its methodology, contested boundaries, and some of its main internal schools of thought; and a critical understanding of the major theories, concepts, principles, and current controversies.
- Critically apply comparative techniques to the study of general constitutional concepts and different jurisdictions.
- Exercise skills of conceptualisation, critical analysis, comparative evaluation, and apply theory to practice and vice versa.
- Employ skills of spoken and written communication in relation to the study of an advanced literature encompassing legal doctrine as well as analytical and normative theory
- Independently read and analyse across inter- disciplinary source materials, construct shared understanding by participation in class discussion, and an ability to distil a wide and varied body of knowledge in the form of an assessed essay, with an appropriate balance of description, critique, analysis, and economy of expression
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Reading List
There is no single textbook that covers the content of this course. However, especially useful background texts are:
David S. Law (Ed.) (2022) Constitutionalism in Context (Cambridge University Press)
Mark Tushnet (2018) Advanced Introduction to Comparative Constitutional Law (2nd Ed) (Edward Elgar)
Michel Rosenfeld & Andras Sajo (Eds.) (2013) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will develop the skills of working independently in the critical analysis of legal and non-legal source materials.
They will gain experience in establishing the relevance of non-legal academic disciplines to understanding the formation and content of primary legal doctrines and underlying theories on comparative constitutional law and its current development.
Clarity of written and spoken expression of abstract concepts will be an essential attribute to successful participation in the course.
By interactive discussion, they will learn the value of shared dialogue to the formation and refinement of their thinking. |
| Keywords | Constitutionalism,comparative constitutional law and politics,applied constitutional theory |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Asanga Welikala
Tel: (0131 6)50 6520
Email: Asanga.Welikala@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Ryan McGuire
Tel: (0131 6)50 2386
Email: Ryan.Mcguire@ed.ac.uk |
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