Xenophon Contiades - Constitutions in the Global Financial Crisis: A Comparative Analysis

CONSTITUTIONS IN THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS

Few see any substantial connection between the global financial crisis and national constitutions. But, in this impressive and timely book, a strong collection of talented constitutional experts from Europe and North America reveal the essential dynamics of this connection and scrutinize the varying responses to the crisis under different constitutional regimes. It offers a provocative and penetrating comparative analysis that should be read by financial scholars and constitutional jurists alike.

Allan C. Hutchinson, York University, Canada

A Comparative Analysis

XENOPHON CONTIADES
Centre for European Constitutional Law, Greece

ASHGATE

Xenophon Contiades and the contributors 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Xenophon Contiades has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Constitutions in the global financial crisis : a comparative analysis.

1. Global Financial Crisis, 20082009. 2. Financial crises Europe. 3. Constitutional law Europe. 4. Comparative economics. 5. Comparative government.

I. Contiades, Xenophon.

342.4dc23

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Constitutions in the global financial crisis : a comparative analysis / by Xenophon Contiades.

pages cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-6631-4 (hardback)ISBN 978-1-4094-6632-1 (ebook) (print)ISBN 978-1-4094-6633-8 (epub) (print) 1. Constitutional historyEurope21st century. 2. Constitutional lawEconomic aspectsEurope. 3. EuropeEconomic policy. 4. Financial crisesEurope. 5. Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2009. I. Contiades, Xenophon I., editor of compilation.

KJC4431.C658 2013

342.4dc23

2012042528

ISBN 9781409466314 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409466321 (ebk-PDF)
ISBN 9781409466338 (ebk-ePUB)

Xenophon Contiades

Xenophon Contiades and Alkmene Fotiadou

David Gwynn Morgan

Tania Groppi, Irene Spigno and Nicola Vizioli

Ringolds Balodis and Janis Pleps

Agustn Ruiz Robledo

John F. McEldowney

Xenophon Contiades and Ioannis A. Tassopoulos

Jnatas E.M. Machado

Zoltn Szente

Bjrg Thorarensen

Mark Tushnet

Ringolds Balodis, Professor of Law, University of Latvia

Xenophon Contiades, Professor of Public Law and Dean, University of Peloponnese, Director, Centre for European Constitutional Law

Dr Alkmene Fotiadou, Research Associate, Centre for European Constitutional Law

Tania Groppi, Professor of Public Law, University of Siena

John F. McEldowney, Professor of Law, University of Warwick

Jnatas E.M. Machado, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Coimbra

David Gwynn Morgan, Professor Emeritus of Law, University College Cork

Janis Pleps, Lecturer of Law, University of Latvia

Agustn Ruiz Robledo, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Granada

Irene Spigno, Doctor of Comparative Public Law, University of Siena

Zoltn Szente, Professor of Law, University of Gyr, Hungary

Ioannis A. Tassopoulos, Associate Professor of Public Law, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Bjrg Thorarensen, Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Iceland

Mark Tushnet, Professor of Law, Harvard University

Nicola Vizioli, Researcher in Public Law University of Siena

Xenophon Contiades

There have been oppression and luxury,

There have been poverty and licence,

There has been minor injustice.

Yet we have gone on living,

Living and partly living.

T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

The study of constitutions in the context of the global financial crisis can be structured through two distinct questions: how can constitutions help in the crisis and what happens to constitutions during such crises? Much is expected from constitutions, perhaps more than they can achieve, and even more happens to them as they are impacted in multiple ways. How a crisis is experienced and the implications it has are bound to surface in response to the what happened to you question.

Beyond its economic impact, the 2008 financial crisis has been producing new constitutional stories. If we wish to encapsulate into one single question what this book is about, that question is How does the global financial crisis affect constitutions and their enforcement? Nonetheless, one could begin by asking the exact opposite, that is Can constitutions affect the course and consequences of the financial crisis? The interaction between the financial crisis and constitutions differs in each legal order as it is correlated to the exact form the crisis took in each country, varying in terms of intensity and symptoms, and also because constitutions and political systems have their own safety valves in response to such challenges.

Economists often compare the current recession to the 1929 Great Depression. Nonetheless, comparing the constitutional dimensions of the two crises would be a mistake, leading to false generalizations, because much has changed since 1929. Democracy operates differently, the functions of constitutions have evolved, and so have state functions and the global economy. Still, the inevitable reminiscence of that era carries connotations of major constitutional repercussions. Looking back to the 1930s, the New Deal constitutional moment and the collapse of the Weimar Constitution are suggestive of the interaction between major financial crises and constitutions, indicating that completely adverse reactions may occur. What happens depends on a combination of constitutional design and multiple external factors. The US Constitution being short and open to informal change was able to resist the crisis, while the Weimar Constitution crumbled under the interaction of inherent faulty constitutional design and external political and social conditions. Revisiting the past thus, not in search of some sort of cyclic recurrence of constitutional reactions but in order to pin down factors that underlie such reactions, indicates the importance of studying the exact correlation between state-specific internal constitutional factors and external influences in real time. Approaching constitutions from the financial crisis perspective reveals the strengths and shortcomings of constitutional design, for such crises simultaneously activate multiple constitutional mechanisms. The need for or desirability of intervention in the constitutional text may surface, while a