Includes bibliographical references.

Preliminary Material -- Constitutional Rights and Legal System / Robert Alexy -- The Learning Sovereign / Guenter Frankenberg -- Legislatures as Constituent Assemblies / Jon Elster -- The Constitution in the Process of Denationalization / Dieter Grimm -- Constitutionalism in Fragmented Societies: the Integrative Function of Liberal Constitutionalism and Its Challenges / Ulrich K. Preus -- The Failure of the Eu’s Constitutional Project: a Cultural Discrepancy / Kaarlo Tuori -- Between Collectivism and Constitutionalism: the Nordic Countries and Constitutionalism - a \'Final Frontier\' or a Period of Transition? -- Constitutionalism and Approaches to Rights in the Nordic Countries / Martin Scheinin -- The Good State or the Constitutional Innocents of the Nordic Societies / Agust Thor Arnson -- List of Contributors.

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This book has its roots in a conference on recent developments in Nordic and German constitutional law that took place in Berlin in 2002 at the Nordic Cultural Centre.That conference was organised within the project Konstitutionalism, demokrati och den nordiska välfärdsstaten (Constitutionalism, Democracy and the Nordic Welfare State), financed by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS). The volume contains the edited and updated papers which emerged from this meeting of minds. They offer insight into some of the new, exciting strands of constitutional thought that are currently present in the Nordic doctrine, where many new paths have been opened in recent years. The contrast with the situation two decades ago is indeed striking. As far as German and European law are concerned, some of the most important theoretical issues in the doctrine are analysed in a number of particularly rewarding and inspiring contributions.