Foreword: Understanding Constitutional Reasoning

Abstract

Constitutional reasoning can be approached from various perspectives, using tools and insights from a wide range of disciplines. While reflecting on the conceptions and perspectives featured in this Special Issue, this Foreword takes both a look back and a look ahead at the research on constitutional reasoning. We identify distinct research programmes and discuss new as well as older methodological approaches to the study of constitutional reasoning. Constitutional reasoning, we argue, is a multifaceted phenomenon, but one which, despite the vast literature it has fostered, remains only partially understood. Yet new research designs – combining a more comprehensive and comparative theoretical framework with new techniques for the analysis of legal texts – promise to advance substantially our understanding of constitutional discourse.