Justin O. Frosini

The spread of human rights and constitutional, representative government based on the rule of law, as either spurs for development or desirable outcomes of development, seems both possible and urgently necessary and yet we appear to be in a phase where many countries are undergoing a democratic retrogression.

This course examines the nature, fate and prospects for constitutional development and democratization across the globe. Employing both the diachronic and synchronic methods of analysis typical of comparative constitutional law, the course addresses topics such as constitution-making and constitutional amendment; forms of state and forms of government as well as the role and functions of constitutional and supreme courts with the aim of understanding how a given institutional framework may facilitate or obstruct transitions to democracy. The experience of so-called ‘consolidated’ democracies will often be used to examine the transition to democracy of other countries.

Is the European Union (EU) an international organization or a State? Is it democratic or technocratic? Are EU citizens benefitting from EU integration and if so how and why? These are among the existential questions that have accompanied the development of the EU and its law in the last decades. These questions are evermore poignant when the model of EU integration is challenged on many fronts; from Brexit to the migration crisis, from the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing great recession to the current pandemic and growing geopolitical tensions. Still, the EU remains the most advanced regional experiment of rule-based transnational governance: its law has transformed the lives of EU citizens and provides a model for regional integration to the rest of the world.

The course offers an overview of the law and institutions of the European Union; it focuses both on its constitutional structure and its substantive law in key areas of EU policymaking, such as the internal market, competition, human rights and external relations. Employing both an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective (comparing the EU with nation states and other international organizations), the course will address topics including the historical development of the EU, its current constitutional arrangements and form of government, the nature of EU law and its enforcement, the functioning of the EU internal market and competition law, the EU charter of Fundamental Rights.

The learning objectives are for students to be able to: understand and describe the structures and processes of the EU, its law and institutions; identify the functions of different legal institutions at the EU level; compare and contrast the constitutional structure of the EU and the nature of its law with other international organizations and states; formulate arguments about the ways in which legal arrangements affect key areas of the European economy and polity; participate in debates concerning the present challenges faced by the EU.

This course uses case studies to examine the causes of political change in consolidated democracies. The cases it looks at in detail are: Great Britain, 1964–1979 and Italy, 1979–1994. Why these two cases? Britain was a by-word for political stability in the 1950s. Yet by the mid–1970s it was regarded as the 'sick man of Europe.' The Heath government fought the 1974 elections on the theme of 'who governs Britain' (the voters decided it was not the government); Britain was forced to have recourse to the IMF in 1976; Mrs. Thatcher was elected to office in May 1979 with a specific mandate to stop the decline. The country, in short, had gone from being a paragon of stability to a pioneer of radical political change in the space of a decade, or little more. Italy, by contrast, was reputed to be the most unstable West European country. In fact, in the 1980s, political commentators noted that it was a very stable instability. The country's much-maligned democracy had, in fact, delivered the economic goods and turned Italy into a highly successful economy and society. The country naturally proceeded to collapse. Between 1989 and 1994 Italy experienced, IV Republic France apart, the worst crisis of any post-war European democracy.

The thesis of this course is that by looking at these two empirical cases one can develop a tentative method for the political analysis of advanced democracies. We are going to ask 'why did Britain (Italy) become politically unstable?' This question cannot be reduced to a few simple variables in a rigid formula. It can only be answered by reconstructing (simulating) the events and trying to figure out what was important and what was not. Our point is, however, that it is possible to generalize from these experiences to other cases. Analysts should look at the constitutional frameworks, the expected and unexpected consequences of legislation, the moods of public opinion, the solidity of the public finances, the perception of social justice, the personal qualities of political leaders, the ambitions and self-image of the political class, the changing character of the population and so on. We should, in short, multiply variables, not reduce them, if we want to understand the direction that particular societies are taking. If we want to gauge political risk — and gauge is a much better word than calculate since it implies using or judgment rather than some mechanical formula — there is no alternative to simulating complexity.