Evaluating Bruce Ackerman’s “Pathways to Constitutionalism” and India as an exemplar of “revolutionary constitutionalism on a human scale”

Abstract

In this invited contribution to a book symposium organised by I.CON on Bruce Ackerman's new book project, I seek to provide an overview of his book project series while situating it within his broader contributions to constitutional law and politics. My appraisal of the book series is broadly positive, as I find the scale, ambition, and methodological approach that he deploys to be impressive. In a later section, I examine his analysis of the Indian constitutional experience which is one of the main planks for his broader argument relating to “revolutionary constitutionalism.” Here, I offer three critical points, which contest some of Ackerman’s views and advance a different perspective on some of his claims about the Indian constitutional experience.