Constitutional Life and Europe's Area of Freedom, Security and Justice

The challenge of thinking about the place of constitutionalism beyond the conventional categories of the nation state has become a principal concern for legal and political scholars. This book casts this issue in a different light by exploring the implications for the constitutionalism of legal integration in the European Union's 'area of freedom, security and justice'. In doing so it makes a novel contribution to an understanding of the European Union as a political community beyond the state, but in addition explores how this entails thinking differently about what is essential concerning constitutionalism. The book argues that instead of seeking to theorise constitutional foundations we actually begin to encounter the constitutional life implied by political and legal practices in the European Union and as exemplified here by 'the area of freedom, security and justice'.Series Editor’s Preface vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi Introduction xiii 1 Constitutional Life and the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice 1 2 Constitutional Life and Legitimacy 23 3 Public Goods as Constitutional Goods 45 4 The Public Good of Security 65 5 The Construction of an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: The Practices of Constitutional Life Examined 83 6 Constitutional Life and Criminal Justice 105 7 Conclusion: Learning Constitutionalism 127 Bibliography 141 Index 147Published version of EUI PhD thesis, 200