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Methodologies Of Comparative Constitutional Law: Functional Approach The Max Planck Encyclopedia Of Comparative Constitutional Law (Forthcoming), Francesca Bignami

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This encyclopedia entry conceptualizes methodology in comparative constitutional law as divided into consumption-side and production-side methodologies. Many of the labels in the field refer to types of consumption of comparative law by constitutional judges and constitution-writers—expressivist, universalist, functionalist. Other labels refer to types of production by scholars situated in the academy—black-letter, historical, contextual, classificatory, critical.

The functional approach, one form of consumption by constitutional judges and constitution-drafters, uses the law of other jurisdictions to explore various alternatives to solving common constitutional problems. Once the alternatives are exposed, the decision to adopt a foreign judicial doctrine or legal text is driven …