Chairs
• Cristina Fasone cristinafasone@gmail.com
• Valentina Carlino valentina.carlino@unisi.it

Accountability requires public authorities to justify their actions and to be subject to oversight. The growing demand to monitor executive action has fuelled, worldwide, the establishment of independent bodies devoted to this role.

In recent decades, particularly emerging from the Global South, new constitutional institutions have appeared that do not fit neatly into the traditional tripartite separation of powers. Alongside courts, numerous independent bodies—such as central banks, electoral commissions, ombudsmen, anti-corruption agencies, and human rights institutions—have been created to ensure transparency and remove sensitive functions from political control. Their independence and monitoring role have led scholars to describe them as a ‘new fourth branch’, or a ‘new ephorate’, marking a shift away from a rigid view of the separation of powers. The proliferation of these ‘guarantor institutions’ has become a global phenomenon, with significant impact on the structure and functioning of constitutional systems.

The workshop aims to explore the category of the ‘fourth branch’ of government and its definition(s), examining the institutions that fall within it, their degree of independence, their functions, their modes of operation, and their de facto influence on constitutional systems. Particular attention will be devoted to the role these bodies play in safeguarding constitutional democracies, both by ensuring transparency and by providing checks against abuses of power.

Through theoretical and practical perspectives, the workshop seeks to shed light on the significance and functioning of this evolving branch for the resilience and legitimacy of democratic governance. The workshop welcomes contributions engaging with fourth-branch institutions from a number of different approaches: historical, philosophical, and conceptual, as well as those based on their policy impact, institutional design, and influence on the protection of fundamental rights, including national case studies and comparative analyses.