The course aims at providing the students with the main instruments for the analysis of the evolution of contemporary constitutionalism on a global scale through a comparative legal method. The participants in the course will learn how to manage traditional concepts – like constitutionalism, forms of state, forms of government, legal transplants and legal borrowing – and new legal concepts – like rule of law backsliding and democratic decay – featuring the study of comparative public law. They will be introduced to the main debates surrounding the research and the scholarship inquiry into this field, in particular the tension between universalism and context-based studies, the opportunity to apply normative notions such as “constitutionalism”, devised in the framework of the Western legal tradition, worldwide, and the use of foreign law by law-makers, judges, and constitution-making operators. The course will try to look at phenomena and public goods like the protection of fundamental rights, separation of powers, and the entrenchment of rule of law principles in general, in a multilevel perspective, that is looking at them not in isolation, within each domestic jurisdiction, but in their interplay amongst levels of government (national, supranational and international). By doing so the course aims to train the students to better understand the comparative constitutional dimensions of political and societal developments that by definition take place in multilevel settings (e.g. constitutional transitions, constitutional adjudication, conflicts of rights and amongst courts). In particular, the course aims to allow the students to: • understand the main legal problems and controversies characterizing comparative public law today; • distill similarities and differences amongst constitutional systems from the perspective of the legal families (e.g. common law, civil law, etc.), of the protection of the Constitution, and of the vertical and horizontal separation of powers; • improve their ability to engage in a critical analysis of ongoing developments at international and domestic level by using legal and constitutional arguments; • be able to assess the pros and cons of the implementation and enforcement of the law in context, depending on the features of a specific legal system and in compliance with the supranational and the international constraints; • be able to actively interact with public and private institutions and interest groups on issues like institution and constitution-building, relationship between legislatures and courts, judicial politics, treatment of minorities, limits to the action of the executive branch Students are expected to be familiar with the basic concepts of Constitutional Law.

Knowledge and understanding: By the end of the course, students will be able to: • show an advanced knowledge of legal scholarship in the field of comparative public law, of the main schools of thoughts and research strands • distinguish different kinds of comparative methodologies and potential shortcomings in their application • detect legal problems connected to the enforcement of the law and propose concrete solutions to them based on a comparative methodology • understand the complexity of today’s legal systems, shaped by the interaction between the national (often even of a sub-national authorities), supranational and international levels of government Applying knowledge and understanding: Students will be able to apply the knowledge acquired during this course for their future professional activities, in particular in the following domains and fields: • disentanglement of the legal aspects from the political, societal and economic aspects of international and domestic problems – e.g. constitutional implications of economic and political crises, treatment of vulnerable groups – also drawing on comparative legal research • writing commentaries, briefs or case notes for policy-makers, private institutions and interest groups on issues like institution and constitution-building; • based on the comparative legal methodology, offering ad hoc legal consultancy to NGOs active at international and at national level Making judgements: Participants in the course will: • be put in a position to carry out autonomous research, collect scholarly and institutional materials, also using legal databases, and to elaborate the information from an independent and original perspective; • be equipped to provide a well-informed legal assessment of ongoing developments at national and international level; • be enabled to critically engage with the main theories and notions of comparative public law and to tailor their evaluation based on the country/countries under investigation. Communications Skills: From the very beginning of the course the instructor will devote a specific attention to train the students to develop an appropriate use of the legal English and to compare the notions studied across the jurisdictions. Therefore, by the end of the course, the students will be able to: • be aware of the similarities and differences of specific concepts across the countries (e.g. the meaning and use of the rule of law, of Constitution, of ruling/judgment/judicial decision, of law and legislation) • manage the legal terminology to be used also for their subsequent professional paths; • express the notions learnt with sufficient clarity and in an understandable manner in an international context Moreover, through class presentations and group work every student will have the opportunity to speak in public and to be involved in discussions to the topics studied on a regular basis. Learning skills: Through this course students will acquire the following skills: • ability to accomplish autonomous research and a doctrinal analysis of the different topics examined across time and space; • through the experiential learning provided by means of case law and legal texts’ analysis, simulation and discussions in class, their capacity to match theoretical concepts and notions with the empirical reality will be enhanced; • ability to detect and apply different kinds of comparative methodologies to a given case or assignment, depending on the underlying purposes (analytical and/or normative) and tasks (professional, judicial, scholarly) • ability to manage the comparative legal methodology for the selection and the investigation of different case studies in the Global North and South

This course deals with the state of art of comparative public law, concentrating on the development of constitutional law in a comparative perspective. Besides the traditional topics of comparative public law, the course also deals with the contemporary alleged decay of liberal democratic constitutionalism all over the world, concentrating on the European development. The main aim is to discuss the relationship between constitutionalism and illiberalism, populism amidst the emergence of illiberal and populist constitutionalism in constitution-making and in constitutional adjudication. Over the course we’ll discuss issues such as constitutional review, constitutional amendments, transitional and transnational constitutionalism from a comparative perspective concluding with the theoretical and current practical relationship between constitutional and democracy. The course will discuss the theories of illiberalism, the different types of populism and constitutionalism, and engage with the question, whether there are such things as ‘authoritarian’, ‘illiberal’ or ‘populist’ constitutionalism. The course will also contrast populist with popular, participatory approaches to constitutional reform. Finally, we will discuss the issue of judicial populism by national and transnational courts. The main objective of the course will be the comprehensive analysis of the possible threat of illiberalism and populism to constitutional democracy. While the main focus is on European societies, the populist tendencies in constitutionalism in the US and the UK will also be discussed. The course further deals with the question of how to strengthen liberal constitutionalism, with special regard to the EU context. What the EU can and should do to oversight non-compliance with European values, such as democracy and the rule of law in member states, and what tools it can use to enforce compliance.

Selected chapters by the instructions from M. Rosenfeld and A. Sajò (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, OUP, 2012 and from In addition, selected readings, cases and legal texts relevant to each topic (please, see the selection for each class)

Instructors will use enquiry-based methodologies to make the most of the active and research-oriented participation of the students as learning device. The sessions will consist of frontal lectures followed by a Q&A with the students, seminar-style teaching as well as on group working on case law and legal texts (selected by instructors) and on discussions of legal problems and challenges.

The assessment will be based on a final oral exam and on two written assigments that can exonerate the students, if passed with a sufficient grade, on the relevant parts of the syllabus. In addition to the readings to be prepared according to the syllabus, non-attending students shall also prepare to deal with on one of the following books of their choice (all available through remote access via LUISS library): - Anderson and Choudry, Territory and Power in Constitutional Transitions, OUP, 2019, https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198836544.001.0001/oso-9780198836544 - Sajò, Ruling by Cheating. Governance in Illiberal Democracy, CUP, 2021, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ruling-by-cheating/25F75BCA4BD6E2585ACEB4F94E2669AE - Suteu, Eternity Clauses in Democratic Constitutionalism, OUP, 2021, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/eternity-clauses-in-democratic-constitutionalism-9780198858867?lang=en&cc=ro

Having obtained at least 27 as the exam grade