Richard Bellamy and Justus Schönlau, The Normality of Constitutional Politics: An Analysis of the Drafting of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (January 11, 2010). Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 412-433, 2004 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1534543
Constitutional politics is often contrasted with normal politics as being more deliberative and so able to produce a principled consensus rather than a compromise.This article qualifies this view. The authors argue that the potential exists for reasonable disagreement even over such basic constitutional principles as rights. As a result,a constitution can only be agreed by employing the arts of compromise typical of normal politics. Indeed, a prime role of constitutional politics lies in showing how conflicts can be normalised. The authors illustrate their argument via a detailed analysis of the various political compromises employed by the convention to draft the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
