Antoni Abat i Ninet - Böcker

Is a constitution the best device for ruling a country? Western political systems tend to be ‘constitutional democracies’, dividing the system into a domain of politics, where the people rule, and a domain of law, set aside for a trained elite. Antoni Abat i Ninet strives to resolve these apparently exclusive public and legal sovereignties, using their various avatars across the globe as case studies. He challenges the American constitutional experience that has dominated western constitutional thought as a quasi-religious doctrine. And he argues that human rights and democracy must strive to deactivate the ‘invisible’ but very real violence embedded in our seemingly sacrosanct constitutions.

This collection presents an analysis of the concept of secession and its constitutional accommodation alongside an assessment of the effects of secession in constitutional and international law. The work proposes a new approach and insights into the existing literature that fill a gap from multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.The book approaches the topics of secession, constitutionalism, and their relationship from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, including the analysis of particular secessionist examples, such as Catalonia, the Basque Country, Tigray, the Palestinian minority in Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Mapuche Nation, from a comparative constitutional perspective. Elucidating these issues from different methodological and conceptual perspectives produces novelties in the scientific and constitutional debate. The interplay between constitutions, constitutional law, and secession is indeed explored from philosophical, socio-legal, but also from strict constitutional law outlooks.Written by constitutional and public international law experts, the book will be of interest to students, academics, and researchers working in the areas of constitutional law, legal theory, theory of the state, philosophy of law, and political science.

This collection presents an analysis of the concept of secession and its constitutional accommodation alongside an assessment of the effects of secession in constitutional and international law. The work proposes a new approach and insights into the existing literature that fill a gap from multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.The book approaches the topics of secession, constitutionalism, and their relationship from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, including the analysis of particular secessionist examples, such as Catalonia, the Basque Country, Tigray, the Palestinian minority in Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Mapuche Nation, from a comparative constitutional perspective. Elucidating these issues from different methodological and conceptual perspectives produces novelties in the scientific and constitutional debate. The interplay between constitutions, constitutional law, and secession is indeed explored from philosophical, socio-legal, but also from strict constitutional law outlooks.Written by constitutional and public international law experts, the book will be of interest to students, academics, and researchers working in the areas of constitutional law, legal theory, theory of the state, philosophy of law, and political science.

Approaching the concept of Islamic constitutionalism from a comparative perspective, this thought-provoking study by Antoni Abat i Ninet and Mark Tushnet uses traditional Western political theory as a lens to develop a framework for analyzing the events known as the 'Arab Spring'.Writing with clarity and insight, the authors place Western and Arabic traditions into a constructive dialogue. They focus on whether we can develop a 'theory of revolutions' that helps us understand events occurring at divergent times at geographically separate locations. This question is meticulously analyzed through the detailed examination of specific developments relevant to the ideas of revolution and constitutionalism in several nations affected by the Arab Spring. Case studies focus on Morocco and Libya as examples of unsuccessful revolutions, as well as Tunisia and Egypt. These lead the authors to consider the nature of constitutionalism itself and the concept of illiberal but non-authoritarian constitutions: a particularly pressing concern given the prominent contemporary discussions of the role of shari'a in post-Arab Spring constitutions.The Arab Spring will offer new insights to scholars, researchers and students of law and the political sciences, in particular those focusing on theories of revolution, democracy, constitutional law, Islamic constitutionalism and legal theory.

Conceptualising the new phenomenon of constitutional crowdsourcing, this incisive book examines democratic legitimacy, participation, and decision-making in constitutions and constitutionalism. It analyses how the wider population can be given a voice in constitution-making and in constitutional interpretation and control, thus promoting the exercise of original and derived constituent power.Chapters investigate the complex relationship and potential relationships between crowdsourcing, democratic constitutionalism and the network society, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of crowdsourcing in this area. This thought-provoking book concludes that constitutionalism is further strengthened because the democratic legitimacy of the constitutional text is reinforced via this mechanism. Antoni Abat i Ninet conceives constitutional crowdsourcing as an epistemic response, an opportunity to place the people at the heart of constitutionalism in the new digital era.Engaging and accessible, Constitutional Crowdsourcing will be of benefit to students and scholars of legal theory, constitutional and administrative law, political science and constitutions. Its forward-looking aspect will also appeal to public officers seeking a better understanding of the potential impact of constitutional crowdfunding.