College of Social Sciences and International Studies
Law, Democracy and Populism: The Rise and Fall of Constitutional Democracy
Module LAW2153 for 2021/2
Module LAW2153 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
LAW2153: Law, Democracy and Populism: The Rise and Fall of Constitutional Democracy
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:
I. Theory
- Law, Constitutions and Constitutionalism
- The Rule of Law and the Idea of Constitutional Democracy
- The Populist Critique of the “Liberal” Component of Constitutional Democracy: Populism, “the People” and Popular Sovereignty
II. From Theory to Practice
- The Rise of Constitutional Democracy and the “End of History” (1989-2011)
- The Legal Implications of Contemporary Populism (I): Populism as a Constitutional Project
- The Legal Implications of Contemporary Populism (II): Populism and Courts
- Democratic Backsliding: The Fall of Constitutional Democracy?
- Rejuvenating Constitutional Democracy?
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled learning and teaching activities | 20 | 10 x 2-hour seminars |
| Scheduled learning and teaching activities | 2 | 2 x 1-hour lectures (i.e., introduction and further guidance on the assessment) |
| Guided independent study | 50 | Preparation for seminars (including reading time and preparation for discussion questions) |
| Guided independent study | 15 | Independent research and writing of formative essay / plan for summative essay |
| Guided independent study | 23 | Independent research and preparation for presentation (summative) |
| Guided independent study | 40 | Independent research and writing of summative essay |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
- Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” (1989) 16 The National Interest (Summer 1989) 3-18
- Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg, “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy” (2018) 65 UCLA Law Review 78-169
- Samuel Issacharoff, “The Corruption of Popular Sovereignty” (2020) New York University School of Law Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper Series Working Paper No 20-2 (forthcoming in International Journal of Constitutional Law)
- Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist” (2004) 39(4) Government and Opposition 541-563
- Jan-Werner Müller, “’The People Must be Extracted from Within the People’: Reflections on Populism” (2014) 21(4) Constellations 483-493
- Margaret Canovan, “Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy” (1999) 47(1) Political Studies 2-16
- Nadia Urbinati, “Political Theory of Populism” 22 (2019) Annual Review of Political Science 111-127
- Luigi Corrias, “Populism in a Constitutional Key: Constituent Power, Popular Sovereignty and Constitutional Identity” (2016) 12(1) European Constitutional Law Review 6-26
- Gábor Halmai, “Populism, Authoritarianism and Constitutionalism” (2019) 20(3) German Law Journal 296-313
- Kim Lane Scheppele, “The Opportunism of Populists and the Defense of Constitutional Liberalism” (2019) 20(3) German Law Journal 314-331
- Paul Blokker, “Populism as a Constitutional Project” (2019) 17(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 536-553
- Bojan Bugaric, “Could Populism Be Good for Constitutional Democracy?” (2019) 15 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 41-58
- Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism” (2002) 13(2) Journal of Democracy 51-65
- Nancy Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding” (2016) 27(1) Journal of Democracy 5-19
- Ming-Sung Kuo, “Against instantaneous democracy” (2019) 17(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law 554
- Martin Loughlin, “The Contemporary Crisis of Constitutional Democracy” (2019) 39(2) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 435-454
- Tarunabh Khaitan, “Executive Aggrandizement in Established Democracies: A Crisis of Liberal Democratic Constitutionalism” (2019) 17(1) International Journal of Constitutional Law 342-356
