The Past of an Illusion? Pluralistic Theories of European Law in Times of “Crises”

The deep transformation of the practice of European law calls for a systematic rethinking of the theories with the help of which European law is analysed, reconstructed and assessed. In this Article, I test the reconstructive potential and the normative soundness of constitutional pluralism as a constitutional theory to make sense of European integration. In Section II, I disaggregate the concept, by means of setting in their wider context the different conceptions of constitutional pluralism that had been advocated. In Section III, I show why the reconstructive potential of the most sophisticated version of constitutional pluralism, pluralistic federalism, has been drastically limited by the deep transformation of the practice of European law. In Section IV, I consider the limits of constitutional pluralism as a normative theory of European integration. The last section holds the conclusions