Reconsidering Constitutional Formation. Research challenges of Comparative Constitutional History

Abstract

Comparative Constitutional History of the 19^th century cannot rely on that which is focused by constitutional documents. As evolutionary achievements of the interplay of the text with its contemporary societal context, with the political practice and with the respective constitutional interpretation, constitutions depend on communication. This becomes obvious by the constitutions` indecisiveness in crucial points, like the relationship between monarch and parliament. As the latter is left open to the dynamics of constitutional practice, the Restoration of the monarchy, after the Charte Constitutionnelle of 1814 which modelled roles, could not eliminate potentialities for parliamentarianism in the political practice after 1830, like the French double trust-parliamentarianism, the concurrency of popular and monarchical sovereignty in the Belgium constitution, the improvised parliamentarianism in the Frankfurt National Assembly and the Italian costituzione flessibile. Basic patterns of constitutional communication serve as suitable tertia comparationis. They are taken from the constitutional semantic and can realize different meanings of identical wording in different national contexts.