Peace, Discontent and Constitutional Law: Challenges to Constitutional Order and Democracy

This book offers a multi-discursive analysis of the constitutional foundations for peaceful coexistence, the constitutional background for discontent and the impact of discontent, and the consequences of conflict and revolution on the constitutional order of a democratic society which may lead to its implosion. It explores the capacity of the constitutional order to serve as a reliable framework for peaceful co-existence while allowing for reasonable and legitimate discontent. It outlines the main factors contributing to rising pressure on constitutional order which may produce an implosion of constitutionalism and constitutional democracy as we have come to know it. The collection presents a wide range of views on the ongoing implosion of the liberal-democratic constitutional consensus which predetermined the constitutional axiology, the institutional design, the constitutional mythology and the functioning of the constitutional orders since the last decades of the 20th century. The constitutional perspective is supplemented with perspectives from financial, EU, labour and social security law, administrative law, migration and religious law. Liberal viewpoints encounter radical democratic and critical legal viewpoints. The work thus allows for a plurality of viewpoints, theoretical preferences and thematic discourses offering a pluralist scientific account of the key challenges to peaceful coexistence within the current constitutional framework.

The book provides a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policymakers working in the areas of constitutional law and politics.

Martin Belov is Professor in Constitutional and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’. He is Vice Dean of the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’, Faculty of Law responsible for the international relations and digitalization. He has published widely on aspects of comparative constitutional law.