Varieties of constitutionalism: Contestations of liberalism in comparative constitutional law

自由主义宪政正面临压力。20世纪90年代向宪政民主和市场经济过渡的浪潮标志着冷战的结束，但并不是历史的结束。今天，经济危机、日益加剧的不平等、非自由大国的崛起以及民粹主义和民族主义的复兴对自由宪政构成了挑战。我们的联合项目建议从比较宪法的角度来调查这些挑战。我们试图绘制当代各种宪政的地图，并评估德国、巴西和各自地区背景下自由宪政的争论和替代方案。因此，该项目介入了比较宪法领域的全球辩论，并为更广泛地讨论自由主义的争论提供了法律视角。该项目追求三个主要目标：第一是通过开发一种比较类型学来促进对各种宪政的研究，使我们能够从几个维度对宪政秩序进行分类，识别不同类型的宪政，并捕捉自由主义类型的差异。特别是，我们试图澄清变革性宪政--一个经常被用来描述巴西宪政秩序的概念--是否应该被概念化为自由宪政的替代方案，或者这两者是否是同一宪政类型的变体。第二个目标是评估巴西和德国在其区域背景下对自由宪政的某些争论。我们将比较哪些规范替代方案是先进的，以及过去和现在的争论是否会导致替代制度，或者导致自由宪政的适应或转变。第三个目标是对典型行为者或“主角”在各种宪政和自由主义辩论中所扮演的角色进行理论化。如果个人是自由宪政的主角，那么在各种宪政中是否有其他参与者竞争主要角色，即像社会运动或公司这样的集体参与者？在主题上，我们的研究将集中在三个有望获得创新见解的领域：民主、经济和开放的宪政。这三个领域将在一项关于公司在各种宪政中的作用的交叉专题研究中联系在一起。这项研究将评估公司是否在巴西和德国的经济、民主和/或开放的宪政中发挥示范作用，将公司置于各种宪政的类型中，并评估它在当代自由宪政的竞争中所起的作用。这项研究将导致德国的适应能力，将项目结果反馈到德国宪法学说和话语中。

Liberal constitutionalism is under pressure. The wave of transitions to constitutional democracy and market economy in the 1990s marked the end of the cold war but not the end of history. Today, economic crises, increasing inequalities, the rise of non-liberal powers and the resurgence of populism and nationalism pose challenges to liberal constitutionalism. Our joint project proposes to investigate these challenges from the perspective of comparative constitutional law. We seek to map contemporary varieties of constitutionalism and to assess contestations of, and alternatives to, liberal constitutionalism in Germany, Brazil and the respective regional contexts. The project thus intervenes in global debates in the field of comparative constitutional law and contributes a legal perspective to broader discussions about contestations of liberalism. The project pursues three main objectives: The first is to contribute to the research on varieties of constitutionalism by developing a comparative typology that enables us to categorize constitutional orders along several dimensions, to identify different types of constitutionalism, and to capture variation within the liberal type. In particular, we seek to clarify whether transformative constitutionalism – a concept often used to characterize the Brazilian constitutional order – should be conceptualized as an alternative to liberal constitutionalism, or wether the two are variants of the same constitutional type. The second objective is to assess selected contestations of liberal constitutionalism in Brazil and Germany in their regional contexts. We will compare what normative alternatives are advanced and whether past and present contestations result(ed) in an alternative regime, or in the adaptation or transformation of liberal constitutionalism. The third objective is to theorize the role that paradigmatic actors, or “protagonists”, play in varieties of constitutionalism and contestations of liberalism. If the individual is the protagonist of liberal constitutionalism, are there alternative actors that compete for the main role in the varieties of constitutionalism, namely collective actors like social movements or corporations? Thematically our research will concentrate on three areas that promise innovative insights: democratic, economic and open constitutionalism. These three areas will be connected in a cross-cutting thematic study on the role of the corporation in the varieties of constitutionalism. This study will assess whether the corporation plays a paradigmatic role in economic, democratic and/or open constitutionalism in Brazil and Germany, will situate the corporation in the typology of the varieties of constitutionalism, and evaluate the role it plays in contemporary contestations of liberal constitutionalism. This study will result in a German habilitation that feeds project results back into German constitutional doctrine and discourse.