The Emergence of Adaptive Constitutionalism through the Lens of National Constitutional Texts: A Typology of Models and Transformation Scenarios

The paper substantiates the author’s conceptualization of adaptive constitutionalism as a contemporary model of legal regulation capable of ensuring the stability and dynamism of the constitutional order under conditions of radical external and internal transformations. Based on a comparative analysis of nine modern constitutions from different countries and legal traditions, the study has developed a typology of models of adaptive constitutionalism. It includes the institutionally flexible model, the cultural-value model, the politico-legal transitional model, the judicial-interpretive model, and the latent adaptive model. The criteria distinguishing these models are reduced to three main parameters. First, this is the dominant source of adaptation — in some countries adaptability is ensured by parliament or constitutional commissions (the legislature), in others by the Constitutional Court (the judiciary), and in still others by public participation through referendum or a constituent assembly (the people). Second, this is the level of institutionalization of change: mechanisms of adaptation are either embedded in the constitutional fabric itself or function as mechanisms external to the text. Third, this is the degree of normative openness of the text: the possibility of flexible interpretation, broad formulations, references to international law, and open value declarations. Scenario analysis made it possible to identify four basic directions in the development of the constitutional order: evolutionary, reformist, transformational, and hybrid. Each of these scenarios is analyzed in terms of its internal constraints, resources of resilience, and politico-legal risks.

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