Global Constitutionalism and Legal Fragmentation: The Populist Backslide in Central and Eastern Europe

Studia Iuridica Lublinensia. 2021. Vol. 3. No. 4. P. 393–440.

Medushevskiy

Globalisation has provoked a deep transformation in international law, political affairs and
governance with contradictory consequences. It has stimulated the cosmopolitan project of global
constitutionalism, transnational integration and the unification of democratic standards. However,
it also resulted in the fragmentation of international affairs, the deterioration of constitutional democracy
and a feeling of a growing shortage in democracy on national and international levels of
governance. Trying to balance the impact of these two opposing trends, the author analyses the
positive and negative effects of globalisation on constitutional development regarding such issues
as transnational constitutionalisation, democracy and national sovereignty, the changing place of
multilayer constitutionalism, the international separation of powers, and the system of global governance
in the establishment of transnational constitutional democratic legitimacy. From this point of
view, the populist backslide in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) looks dangerous and unforeseen,
but it is a systemic and potentially predictable reaction of global regions on the uneven character of
integration, the lack of democratic legitimacy and a new answer to the contortions and dysfunctions
of global governance. An adequate response to these challenges could be found in a new concept of
constitutional integration based on ongoing dialogue between the transnational and national actors
 

Keywords: sovereignty, fragmentation, global constitutionalism, constitutionalisation, conflict-mediation strategy

Publication based on the results of: Глобальный конституционализм: проекты, стратегии продвижения, политический вклад (2020)