Constitutionalism and the Politics of Accommodation in Multinational Democracies

This collection presents a nuanced analysis of a wide variety of cases that cover the spectrum of constitutional strategies of accommodation used by multinational states such as Canada, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Although constitutionalism has traditionally been the primary mechanism for facilitating the mutual accommodation of national diversity, there is a need to bridge comparative politics and comparative constitutional law. The notion of accommodation in plurinational polities needs to be unpacked and disaggregated, and all of its multiple dimensions analyzed, in order to integrate comparative politics and comparative constitutional law into the analysis.

The essays in the book explore three fundamental dimensions of the politics of accommodation: constitutionalism, political culture, and nationalism. Adopting a syncretistic approach to the multiple dimensions of the politics of accommodation, this collection opens up new intellectual vistas, and provides the reader with an appreciation of the contribution that political science perspectives can make to law, and how law and jurisprudence can enrich the study of politics.

Jaime Lluch has earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, USA and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University, USA. He has been awarded a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellowship, a Ford Foundation Fellowship and has held visiting fellowships at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, Italy, the European Studies Center at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, U.K, and the University of Pennsylvania, USA.