Constitutional change has been one of the most interesting debates in the recent constitutional law scholarship. A distinction has been drawn between formal and informal constitutional changes, by using as a criterion the compliance with the requirements of the constitutional text regarding...

Constitutional reform is a tedious process that requires long periods of time, a relatively broad consensus among the political actors, and often needs popular approval. In spite of these, Romania changed its constitution once (2003) and witnessed several unsuccessful revisions. The most recent...

Romanian constitution-making since 1989 has been of an uneven and recently evermore conflictive kind. In the 1990s, no significant changes to the 1991 Constitution were made, and the role of the Romanian Constitution could be said to be less visible in politics. Since the mid-2000s, in contrast,...

Analysis of the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union shows that there is a serious discrepancy between the voting power gradient of Member States computed by the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices. Given the lack of compelling arguments to choose between these indices on purely axiomatic...

This paper provides a political-economy explanation of the degree of centralization in economic policy making. To determine which policies are to be centralized, regions select representatives who then negotiate the degree of centralization and the regional cost shares of centrally decided...

The constitutionalization of the state, the juridification of political power is one of the major achievements in the civilization of modern politics. Can and will this achievement survive the post-national constellation? The state no longer possesses all powers but some of its ruling authority...

The ways of decision making within the EU have significantly changed in the last decades: the rule of unanimity has been more and more substituted by majority voting in order to speed up decision-making processes in a Union of 27 heterogeneous member states. A third possibility is now offered by...

Der Europäische Konvent hat in seinem Verfassungsentwurf erste Reformschritte zur Entbürokratisierung der zahlreichen und kaum überschaubaren Ausschussverfahren in der EU vorgeschlagen. Welche Interessenkonflikte sind bei der Reform zu erwarten? Welche verfassungsökonomischen Aspekte sind zu...