Introduction: Constitutionalism for Divided Societies

Abstract

The commentary in this Part of the book focuses on a range of tensions that have developed from misjudged political meddling in fragile constitutional orders. The writers capture the extent to which the operation of constitutional settlements in divided, heterogeneous multinational European states can be affected by no small degree of political contingency. The timing of this thoughtful analysis is particularly auspicious given the development of a range of constitutional ruptures across Europe over the past few years. More specifically, the authors offer an account, through an eclectic and innovative array of methodological style, of how legal devices that often operate at the subterranean may in fact entrench communal division in a crisis. Read together, then, these chapters offer an innovative exploration of a range of legal responses to acute constitutional stress in several divided European nation states.