Engineering Constitutional Change

This book offers a comprehensive comparative guide to constitutional amendment in Europe and North America. The contributions to the book are written by experts in comparative constitutional law and looks at a particular country providing a critical analysis of its constitutional revision principles, procedure, practice and developments. The volume includes a final chapter with a comparative analysis on constitutional amendment elaborating on and attempting to develop an explanatory theory regarding the points of convergence as well as the detected differentiations. Thus allowing the comparative elements interesting at an international level to emerge and be assessed.

Introduction Part 1: Constitutional Amendment in Europe, Canada and the USA 1. Constitutional Change Engineering, Xenophon Contiades 2. Constitutional Change in Austria, Manfred Stelzer 3. The Process of Constitutional Amendment in Belgium, Christian Behrendt 4. Constitutional Change and Constitutional Amendment: A Canadian Conundrum, Allan C. Hutchinson 5. Formal and Informal Methods of Constitutional Change in Denmark, Helle Krunke 6. Constitutional Amendment in Finland, Tuomas Ojanen 7. Constitutional Amendment in France, Wanda Mastor and Liliane Icher 8. Constitutional Amendments and Constitutional Changes in Germany, Markus Kotzur 9. Constitutional Change in Greece, Xenophon Contiades and Ioannis Tasopoulos 10. Constitutional Amendment in Ireland, Fiona de Londras and David Gwynn Morgan 11. Constitutional Revision in Italy: A Marginal Instrument for Constitutional Change, Tania Groppi 12. Constitutional Amendment in Luxembourg, Jörg Gerkrath 13. , The Constitutional Revision Process in the Netherlands: Sensible Security Valve or Cause of Constitutional Paralysis? , Wim J.M. Voermans 14. The Portuguese Constitution of 1976: Half-life and Decay , Jonatas E. M. Machado 15. Constitutional Change in Spain, Abraham Barrero Ortega and Irene Sobrino Guijarro 16. Constitutional Amendment in Sweden, Lars-Göran Malmberg 17. Constitutional Revision: The Case of Switzerland, Thomas Fleiner 18. Constitutional Amendment in the United Kingdom, Robert Blackburn 19. Constitutional Revision in the United States of America, John R. Vile Part 2: Comparative Perspectives 20. Models of Constitutional Change, Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou