Dixon, Rosalind; Ginsburg, Tom --- "Introduction" [2011] ELECD 361; in Ginsburg, Tom; Dixon, Rosalind (eds), "Comparative Constitutional Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Comparative Constitutional Law

Editor(s): Ginsburg, Tom; Dixon, Rosalind

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848445390

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Dixon, Rosalind; Ginsburg, Tom

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

1. Introduction
Rosalind Dixon and Tom Ginsburg



Comparative constitutional law is a newly energized field in the early 21st century. Never
before has the field had such a broad range of interdisciplinary interest, with lawyers, politi-
cal scientists, sociologists and even economists making contributions to our collective under-
standing of how constitutions are formed and how they operate. Never before has there been
such demand from courts, lawyers and constitution-makers in a wide range of countries for
comparative legal analysis. And never before has the field been so institutionalized, with new
regional and international associations providing fora for the exchange of ideas and the orga-
nization of collaborative projects.
This Handbook is one such collaborative project, a small effort to provide an overview of
the field. It is inherent that any such effort will be incomplete, and we surely recognize the
limitations of any effort to distill such a rich field into a single volume. But we also believe
that the time has come for some organization of the various issues and controversies that
structure academic and legal debate. As the field matures, such efforts will help to advance
scholarship to the next level, by focusing attention on outstanding questions as well as rais-
ing awareness of issues worth pursuing in under-analyzed jurisdictions.
This Introduction provides a brief history of the field, and wrestles with the definitional
issues of the boundaries of the constitution. It then draws out the common themes that emerge
from a reading of the ...