Traditionally, Danish case law, academic literature, and other sources do not refer directly to ‘constitutional identity’. However, this absence of the term constitutional identity does not mean that Denmark has none. What it does mean is that it must be extracted from an interpretation of the Constitution, case law, and other sources. Seen in light of the different models of national separation of power in the EU Member States, this chapter challenges the common assumption that constitutional courts and supreme courts are the definers of national constitutional identity in relation to Article 4(2) TEU. In some Member States, the courts are very active in defining constitutional identity, but in others with strong parliaments and more reluctant courts, this is not the case. In order to secure equality between the Member States, we will have to accept that institutions other than courts can be the definers of constitutional identity, depending on the national model for separation of powers.

Ireland’s practice of holding referendums to approve European treaties has operated as a significant political barrier in the European integration process. This chapter explains how the practice derives from quite distinctive interpretations of the principles of national sovereignty and popular sovereignty enshrined in the Irish Constitution. In particular, it explains both how popular sovereignty in Irish constitutional law receives a largely procedural and plebiscitary expression, and how national and popular sovereignty have become conceptually intertwined. Although both versions of sovereignty have become integral components of constitutional identity in Ireland, this chapter explains various anomalies and contradictions that arise from each.

This chapter tests the main empirical hypothesis introduced at the end of Chapter 7. If it is true that the most significant mode of persistence of the Christian Democratic ideology in the contemporary political landscape is not as a partisan phenomenon, but rather as a feature of established institutional frameworks and political cultures in regimes where it previously held a dominant political position, then many of its distinctive features should still be visible in these institutional frameworks and political cultures. To see whether this is indeed the case, I will focus on one such regime in particular: the EU.

This book is a study of the political ideology of Christian Democracy, a set of principles and values that has, on the one hand, been extremely influential in the history of Western democratic regimes, but, on the other hand, remains severely understudied, especially when compared with its main ideological rivals: socialism, liberalism and conservatism. I begin by substantiating these two claims.

This chapter examines the Christian Democratic conception of the state through a discussion of the meaning that this ideological tradition has historically attached to the concept of subsidiarity. Broadly understood as a principle of distribution of state power through its devolution both downwards to local and regional public authorities and upwards to international organizations, this principle is at the heart of all Christian Democratic political programs and manifestoes.

This chapter examines the specific conception of political subjectivity on which the Christian Democratic ideology is predicated and the vision of democracy that follows from it. As we will see, Christian Democracy is predicated on a particular interpretation of the category of the “people,” which is distinct at once from the liberal, the republican and the populist ones that dominate contemporary political discourse and theory. From it there follows a distinctive conception of democracy, which also diverges in several significant respects from those corresponding to such labels.

Having delineated the core constitutive elements of the Christian Democratic ideology in Part I of the book, Part II examines its historical instantiations and prospects for the future. Thus, whereas in the first part the approach was largely synchronic, here we look at the Christian Democratic ideology from a more diachronic perspective. This will also allow for greater attention to the internal heterogeneity of the various manifestations of the Christian Democratic ideology over time, which is something that had previously been somewhat obscured by the intention of reconstructing this ideology’s conceptual unity. I begin by discussing Christian Democracy’s historical trajectory in its primary context of origin, that is, continental Europe, focusing in particular on three national experiences: those of Italian, German and French Christian Democratic parties. The ensuing chapters broaden the focus, discussing the European Union as a whole, Latin America and the question of Christian Democracy’s lingering normative potential.

This chapter is devoted to an exposition of Christian Democracy’s tenets in the field of political economy through an analysis of the meaning this ideological tradition has historically assigned to the concept of social capitalism and other related concepts such as social market economy, solidarism and third way between capitalism and socialism. The fact that an ideology that claims to be based on Christian values has anything distinctive to say about the socioeconomic domain may initially appear surprising. On further reflection, however, this proves to be an essential component of the Christian Democratic ideology as a whole, for at least two reasons.