Reading Seminar: Economic Constitutionalism with Daisy Mugadza

Co-hosted with the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society, and the Rule of Law (CISRUL), this seminar is part of the series ‘What Is a Constitution? Reading Towards a Problem’.

Daisy Mugadza will lead a discussion on economic constitutionalism. The session will take the form of a reading seminar, intended to serve as an introduction to the topic. In preparation, please try to read the 2 articles:

• Dimitrios Kivotidis, ‘The UK Economic Constitution after Brexit: Between Authoritarianism and Democracy (2023) 2023(4) Public Law 650-672 (https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/34503/).
• Ngoc Son Bui, ‘Economic Constitutions in the Developing World’ (2019) 12(3) Law and Development Review 669-690 (https://www.proquest.com/docview/2294465582?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals).

Questions to guide the reading and seminar discussion include:

1. How do you understand the concepts of ‘economic constitutionalism’ as well as ‘economic constitution’?
2. One focus of Kivotidis’ article is the impact that EU membership had on increased elements of "authoritarianism" within the UK’s economic constitution. How might one describe the UK's economic constitution absent such influences, and how does this link to its constitutional framework more generally?
3. Is it accurate to describe institutions such as the Office for Budget Responsibility — or similarly the Bank of England — as “depoliticised” and examples of “technocratic economic governance”? Does this amount to oversimplification?
4. Bui, focusing on economic constitutions in the developing world, refers to direct and indirect conceptions of economic constitutions as well as to their expressive and regulative functions. To what extent can these ideas also be applied to the UK context?