This article seeks to establish which scholars of European constitutional law produced particularly influential “constitutional imaginaries” – coherent visions of the EU and its legal and political order, anchored in some (explicit or not) ideology. After introducing the broader research agenda, within which this article is situated, part II discusses…

IMAGINing Together brings colleagues from projects that pursue agenda close to ours: thinking broadly about Europe, its law and history. This time we meet with EuroStorie, the Centre of Excellence based in Helsinki, which critically investigates the foundations of the European narrative about a shared heritage of law, values…

In European constitutional imaginaries: Between ideology and utopia (forthcoming in the OUP) a group of international scholars of various disciplinary backgrounds (constitutional law and theory, political theory, sociology and philosophy) examined the concept of constitutional imaginary: a set of ideas and beliefs that help to motivate and justify the practice…

The Working Group is generously funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission via the Jean Monnet Chair in EU Politics and Law and the EUROGOV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, both at Trinity College Dublin. Meeting was chaired by Stephen Coutts.

Link to the podcast @ De Nederlandse Vereniging voor Europees Recht. Is EU law still supreme? Most national high courts have formulated some limits on the absolute supremacy claimed by EU law. Only three courts so far have actually declared an EU act to be ultra vires, openly denying…

14 December, The Academic Forum of the New University: Revitalization of EU Constitutionalism, Jan Komárek discussed (with Gráinne de Búrca and Neil Walker) Matej Abelj’s IMAGINE Working Paper No. 9; video from the Forum…

3 and 4 October 2019, Danish European Community Studies Annual Conference,  Aarhus University, Jan Komárek presented paper European constitutionalism: Towards an ‘ideology critique’ and participated in the round table discussion “Crisis Politics and the Judiciary”, together with Christian Joerges (kick-off speech), Hagen Schulz-Forberg (moderator) and Karen Alter and Graham Butler  (other panelists) (programme here).

The underlying assumption of constitutional pluralism, one of the dominant theories of EU legal scholarship, is a fundamental constitutional homogeneity amongst the EU Member States allowing for harmonious co‐existence and ‘constitutional tolerance’. This article challenges this assumption by demonstrating that the EU is characterised by a fundamental constitutional heterogeneity. It…

In this essay, we challenge the characterisation of European law as a constitutional order from two related standpoints, namely, the ambiguity of what is meant when characterising European law as constitutional, and the lack of a well-argued narrative explaining how European law became constitutional and what type of constitutionalism it…

This article argues that, despite the negative historical experience, nothing in the nature of constitutionalism as a concept stands in the way of the European Union (EU) eventually adopting a constitution, and so turning its tacit and silent constitutionalism into an explicit project. Furthermore, the past crises of European integration,…

This is a review essay on three recently published books that seek to rethink constitutionalism and democracy in the context of European integration. The books are: Dieter Grimm, The Constitution of European Democracy (Oxford: OUP 2017), Athanasios Psygkas, From the “Democratic Deficit” to a “Democratic Surplus”: Constructing Administrative Democracy in…

This article argues that reading Transformation today may help us understand the limits of liberal constitutional imaginary, on which Transformation builds and which it helped to establish in the 1990s. Now, when ‘Western liberalism’ is on retreat, such critical reading may be indispensable for those who look for alternatives. The…

Imaginary is both a goal and a map charting the path to that ideally imagined socio-political construction. Ideas matter and, indeed, human beings make things with words, especially in the social reality, but there is no direct or linear trajectory between the concepts, on which a given imaginary is built,…

Postwar Europe is partly reconstituted by a fear of democratic freedom, and a desire for political and economic stability. Constitutional relations are transformed over time through a mixture of political authoritarianism and economic liberalism. This takes place in a combination of domestic and supranational developments. The transformation also has a…

Author’s version of a review article published in (2019) 17 International Journal of Constitutional Law 992–1005 This is a review essay on three recently published books that seek to rethink constitutionalism and democracy in the context of European integration. The books are: Dieter Grimm, The Constitution of European Democracy…

In most his most recent accounts of European integration, J.H.H. Weiler claims that Europe was built with Messianic fervor. After the destruction and evil wrought by the Second World War, Europe was supposed to be a ‘promised land’. The article examines how Weiler conflates the narrative of the exodus with…

This paper outlines the conceptual background to a broader intellectual project that aims to study ‘European Constitutional Imaginaries’. These are understood as ideas that stand behind various conceptualisations of the EU constitution, produced by EU constitutional lawyers and theorists. The paper first explains the concept and identifies the gap in…

Contribution to the online symposium on Poul F. Kjær (ed), The Law of Political Economy: Transformations in the Function of Law (CUP 2020), published at Verfassungsblog on 4 September 2020. The volume seeks to re-connect law and political economy, both understood in very broad terms. My contribution provides…

Welcome to the first podcast brought to you by the IMAGINE Project, run by Professor Jan Komarek and hosted at the iCourts Centre of Excellence for International Courts.