October 11, 2011
The second in a series of Tuesday-night lectures held by the AUA Law Department featured a Georgetown University scholar, Sam Potolicchio, who presented the topic “How to Have a (Liberal) Constitutional Democracy?” After presenting the trajectory of America’s Constitutional development and a discussion of lessons drawn for developing democracies, both the speaker and participants questioned whether consolidated democracies like the U.S. can really offer ready-to-go models for other states. The idea that there are limits to borrowing mirrored the prior week’s conclusions regarding transplanting institutions for rule of law development. Perhaps what is more valuable for us to learn from America’s constitutionalism is the whole ethos of constitutional development which led to the emergence of the modern constitutional system in the U.S. Particularly, it is worth paying close attention to the values and incentives which inspired the emerging community to abide by a sustainable social contract based on the principles of limited government, accountability and effective checks and balances among government agencies. “Borrowing” of the philosophy and the patterns of solidarity necessary to achieve such a constitutional contract is a better objective for us when looking at and studying the history of American constitutionalism.
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