4 From Comparative Constitutional Law to Comparative Constitutional Studies

The chapter argues for an interdisciplinary approach to comparative constitutional inquiry that is methodologically and substantively preferable to doctrinal accounts. It suggests that for historical, analytical, and methodological reasons, maintaining the disciplinary divide between comparative constitutional law and other closely related disciplines that study various aspects of the same constitutional phenomena, artificially and unnecessarily limits our horizons and restricts the questions asked as well as the answers provided. Traditional disciplinary boundaries, both substantive and methodological, between comparative (public) law and the social sciences continue to impede the development of comparative constitutional studies as an ambitious, coherent, and theoretically advanced area of inquiry. By engaging in a dialogue with the social sciences, and political science in particular, comparative constitutional inquiries would go beyond the traditional realms of judicial review to consider extrajudicial factors such as judicial behaviour, the origins of constitutional change, constitutional design, and the real-life effects of constitutional jurisprudence.