A Sociology of Constitutions Constitutions and State Legitimacy in Historical-Sociological Perspective Cambridge Studies in Law and Society Series

Using a methodology that both analyzes particular constitutional texts and theories and reconstructs their historical evolution, Chris Thornhill examines the social role and legitimating status of constitutions from the first quasi-constitutional documents of medieval Europe, through the classical period of revolutionary constitutionalism, to recent processes of constitutional transition. A Sociology of Constitutions explores the reasons why modern societies require constitutions and constitutional norms and presents a distinctive socio-normative analysis of the constitutional preconditions of political legitimacy.

1. Medieval constitutions; 2. Constitutions and early modernity; 3. States, rights and the revolutionary form of power; 4. Constitutions from Empire to Fascism; 5. Constitutions and democratic transitions.

Chris Thornhill is Professor of European Political Thought and Head of Politics at the University of Glasgow, where his research focuses both on the relations between legal and political theory and legal and political sociology and on processes of state formation and constitution writing in different European societies.