Defending the Political Constitution: A Book Launch of Richard Bellamy’s latest book

This event was organised by the UCL Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism. Speaker: Prof Richard Bellamy (UCL Political Science) Respondents: Prof Colm O’Cinneide (UCL Laws), Dr Udit Bhatia (King’s College London), Prof Alan Renwick (UCL Political Science), Dr Hayley Hooper (University of Oxford) Chair: Professor Erin Delaney (UCL Laws) Abstract This event celebrates the launch of Defending the Political Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2026), authored by Richard Bellamy About the Book This book defends the superior merits of a political constitution of a democratic kind compared to those of a legal constitution of a liberal hue. Political constitutionalism locates the constitution in the character and design of the political system and the modus operandi of its component political processes. It is often seen as an idiosyncratic feature of the UK and certain Commonwealth and Nordic countries. It gets compared unfavourably with a legal constitution involving an entrenched constitution that operates as higher law and is upheld by a supreme or constitutional court, such as that of the United States or Germany. By contrast, this book contends a legal constitution only operates as well as the underlying political constitution within which it is embedded. The first part of the book defends the constitutional properties of democratic political systems as sources and protectors of rights and the rule of law. The subsequent parts explore challenges to political constitutionalism stemming from the apparent spread of legal constitutionalism via domestic Bills of Rights and international law, on the one hand, and of technocratic regulators—not least at the global level, through organizations such as the WTO and the EU— and the populist movements they have given rise to, on the other. It shows how international law and regulation can be placed under the mutual control of democratic states in ways that complement and support political constitutionalism at the domestic level by tying it into a form of intergovernmental political constitutionalism at the international level. Finally, it rebuts claims that political constitutionalism encourages and legitimizes populist reactions to these developments, arguing instead that it offers the best way to counter such democratic backsliding.