ABSTRACT
The emergence of constitutional democracy in the region of Central and Eastern Europe is not reducible to the adoption of the legalconstitutional or ‘new-constitutional’ model predominant in the contemporary world (cf. Stone Sweet 2008). As argued in the preceding chapters, the legal and constitutional changes that in part preceded the negotiated revolutions of 1989 involved complex tendencies that do not merely point to the straightforward emergence of the rule of law and liberal constitutionalism, replacing the (post-)totalitarian structures of communism. The complexity of legal and democratic change was also re½ected in the highly important dissident language, which involved both an emphasis on rights and the rule of law, and on civic emancipation. In this regard, a comparative analysis of (the potentials of) civic or democratic constitutionalism seems overdue1 and of high signi¼cance for a more comprehensive understanding of democratization and legal change in the post-communist countries.
