Research project "The Crisis of Constitutionalism in the New Democracies" (CRISCON)
The crisis of European democracy coincides with the post-1989 democratisation processes of the East-Central European (ECE) countries. The new EU member states face a dual crisis: the crisis of state-centred, constitutional democracy in its West-European, Westphalian guise as well as the distinct problems resulting from the political transformation from totalitarian systems to some form of democracy. The analysis of democratisation processes in ECE has for an important part centred on the establishment of the rule in law in the post-communist societies. In this, insufficient attention is paid to the delegitimising trends that affect conventional constitutional states, in particular regarding the integrative function of constitutional democracies, i.e., the extent to which constitutions are actually reflecting widely shared values and contribute to democracy and popular sovereignty. In particular, national and subnational solutions in the form of democratic participation and self-governance are insufficiently considered. The research project answers to this lacuna by developing an alternative approach to the ‘democratic deficit’ of the ECE countries,pointing to an alternative form of societal integration and constitutional legitimation of politics that could potentially emerge from below, regarding local and regional forms of democracy. It focusses on the integrative, democratic implications that decentralisation and the interpretation of the subsidiarity principle potentially have in constitutional terms, and the way such phenomena might counter the lack of integrative and symbolic potential of modern constitutional regimes. The general aims of the project are to comparatively research, analyse, and evaluate different trajectories of the constitutionalisation of democracy in the new member states, particularly focussing on the integrative function/symbolic rationality of political constitutions, and to track (potentiality for) transformation in constitutional orders as a result of supranational as well as subnational pressures. The particular objectives consist in the theorisation of the relations between democratisation and constitutionalism in the context of European integration; the comparative description and evaluation of the nature of national constitutions in 5 of the new member states; the identification of the main problematic areas of national constitutions in the context of the changed nature of the nation-state in terms of sovereignty and socio-cultural pluralism; the identification of alternative forms of symbolic rationality based on innovative forms of democratic participation, deliberation, and self-governance; the proposal of an original theoretical and analytical understanding of constitutionalism in the European context.

List of keywords Local Democracy - European Integration - Constitutionalisms - Participation - Legal Pluralism