Author Interview: Constitutional Revolution

Yaniv Roznai & Gary Jacobsohn

Tell us a little bit about the book

Few terms in political theory are as overused, and yet as under-theorized, as “constitutional revolution”. In this book, we argue that the most widely accepted accounts of constitutional transformation fail adequately to explain radical change. For example, a “constitutional moment” may or may not accompany the onset of a constitutional revolution. The consolidation of revolutionary aspirations may take place over an extended period. The “moment” may have been underway for decades—or there may be no such moment at all. On the other hand, seemingly radical breaks in a constitutional regime actually may bring very little change in constitutional practice and identity. Constructing a clarifying lens for comprehending the many ways in which constitutional revolutions occur, and demonstrating it by using comparative case studies, we seek to capture the essence of what happens when constitutional paradigms change.

What inspired you to take up this project?

The inspiration for this project was the extraordinary wave of constitutional transformation that hit so many polities in the last half-century.  Some of this transformation occurred as the result of a rupture in legal continuity leading to the installation of new regimes, often accompanied by the sort of change we associate with revolutionary upheaval.  But what attracted our attention were the many cases – a shortlist would include transformations in South Africa, Eastern Europe, Great Britain, India, Turkey, Canada, and Israel – where a paradigmatic shift occured within the existing parameters of the constitutional system.  What struck us, was the absence of conceptualization for this phenomenon. So we decided to write a book about the concept of the constitutional revolution, an idea for which no canonical meaning exists.

Whose work was influential on you throughout the course of the project?

One can understand the word “influence” in many different ways.  The same is true of the word “work.”  In reflecting and writing about politics and law, what often proves most influential are the contributions of people whose teachings are typically not found between the covers of scholarly treatizes but rather in the thoughts that accompany their historical roles. Readers will, therefore, notice the seminal influence of figures whose words have had sway beyond the political realm.  This book reveals the powerful presence in our work of some familiar names, most prominently: Lincoln, Madison, Nehru and Barak. 

As regards the work of individuals whose writings fall mainly within the conventional scholarly domain, Hannah Arendt, Hans Kelsen, and Bruce Ackerman are the names that loom large for us. However, these authors feature as foils against which we build our argument, rather than them having played a determinative role in shaping our thinking.  So we think of them as importantly influential in that their works lie at the core of the standard way in which revolutionary change has been conceptualized, with emphasis on such reference markers as illegal transformation (Kelsen and Arendt) and the centrality of the “constitutional moment” (Ackerman). In that we pointedly ask the reader to embrace a very different way of understanding revolutionary change that occurs within a constitutional space, these influential thinkers have been instrumental to the development of our ideas in this book.

What challenges did you face in writing the book?

The challenges were several. Our work is not only conceptual, but broadly comparative. Four of the chapters involve detailed case studies that required immersion in materials and issues that took us out of our “comfort zones.”  Jacobsohn has written extensively on India, and Roznai has intimate familiarity with all things Israeli. Still, our other country studies – Hungary and Germany – demanded an arduous investment of scholarly energy commensurate with our commitment to the highest academic standards.  That wasn’t always easy, but we think we pulled it off.

Another challenge is more mundane, and quite common, we’re sure. All of our previous books have been individually composed. So the collaborative exercise of co-authorship confronted us with writing issues of both style and substance that were daunting in the abstract, if in the end quite manageable when specifically encountered. 

Also, we came to this project without a personal relationship (brought together by our attraction to each others’ previous work), and we were oceans apart during the years that the book took to write. All this only added to the concerns that might be considered endemic to such an enterprise. Yet, these additional obstacles also provide more reason to exult in the fact that that the challenge was not only happily met but accompanied by the acquisition of true friendship.

What’s next?

G. Jacobsohn – My most immediate project is the second edition of my 2010 book, Constitutional Identity.  Most of that book was written prior to the German Lisbon Treaty Case, in which the German Federal Constitutional Court deployed the term constitutional identity over thirty times.  In the revised version, I want to address the problem of European integration; more specifically, the uses and abuses of the concept in several countries, most notably Hungary.  The invocation of constitutional identity has come to be associated with the worrisome phenomenon of democratic backsliding.  I will argue that the misappropriation of the German ruling is predicated on a misapprehension of the concept’s core meaning.  The book will also consider developments in other parts of the world.

Y. Roznai – I am working now on several big book projects, all of which I’m really excited about. One, together with Pietro Faraguna, is about the role of courts as “guardians of parliaments” – how courts protect the legislature vis-à-vis the executive branch. Also, focusing more on Israeli constitutional law, I’m working on the primary Hebrew textbook on ‘the constitutional law of Israel’, and, together with Amichai Cohen and Suzie Navot, on a book that would describe and explain in-depth Israel’s constitutional revolution and counter-revolution. Finally, tentatively called ‘We the Limited People’, is an exploration of the boundaries of constitution-making powers, from theoretical and comparative perspectives. So, a lot to expect!