Constitutional Polycrisis and Emergency Constitutionalism

This book offers a range of critical narratives on the interplay between constitutional polycrisis and emergency constitutionalism. They are integrated by the desire to both expose cracks in the current schemes for taming conflict, crisis, and non-normalcy and to demonstrate the constitutional shapes of the emerging post-crisis and post-transition world order. The book shows that a constitutional crisis is a multidimensional phenomenon. It outlines the legal (normative-institutional), socio-legal (empirical, performative, and socio-institutional), theoretical (conceptual and phenomenological), and imaginary dimensions of crisis. The book critically exposes the fallacy of emergency constitutionalism, consisting in the claim that emergency is a temporal and efficient crisis response. It shows that emergency constitutionalism may be the formative tool of a new crisis-borne and emergency-related normalcy. The mission of this book is to raise awareness of the tendencies towards paternalism, emergency governance, and government of fear.

Martin Belov is Professor in Constitutional and Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Sofia ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’, Bulgaria. He has been visiting professor in more than 20 universities in Italy, Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, UK, Israel, Austria etc. He has published 27 books and 115 scientific papers and book chapters.