A constitutional democracy is a government in which the people vote for representatives or laws, and in which the laws are authorized and constrained by a constitution. Such a system is also referred to as “liberal democracy.” The constitution is usually a written document, although in the case of the UK, it is a set of documents that collectively form constitutional rules.
The constitution of a country is its supreme law. In a constitutional democracy, the constitution’s authority comes from the people, who establish the highest level of rules. Indeed, the preamble of the US Constitution begins with these words: “We the People of the United States.”
Constitutional democracy relates to global justice in two ways. First, justice requires a uniform rule of law, in contrast to the arbitrary whims of powerful individuals. Secondly, democracy needs constitutional limits in order to prevent the tyranny of the democratic majority. In order for justice to be truly global, there needs to be a...
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Foldvary, F.E. (2011). Democracy, Constitutional. In: Chatterjee, D.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_42
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