Chairs:

• Imer B. Flores – imer@unam.mx
• Diego E. López Medina – dlopez@uniandes.edu.co

The constitutional and democratic rule of law seems to be crumbling in our hands, for it contains a profound contradiction. Its very conditions of possibility—and even of sustainability—suggest that it is, by definition, a limited government subject to law; or else, that it may claim to be a government where popular sovereignty could give rise to an unlimited one. This tension is exemplified by the clash between “bold and daring” governments that adopt blitzkrieg-style strategies to do things deeply and quickly, through concentration of power, on the one hand, and the “moderate and cautious” ones that still rely on traditional Fabian mechanisms to introduce gradual and incremental reforms, through the deliberation imposed by the separation of powers, on the other. For many “decisive” governments, “democracy” today is understood as a clear and direct mandate that the electorate gives to the president and the ruling party to execute their agenda or action plan, come what may. “Constitutionalism” and the “rule of law” are therefore seen as an excessive tangle of obstacles and procedures that diminish the effective capacity to do what is necessary for the public interest.

As Hungary’s Fidesz party said a few years ago in its electoral campaign: “if you are bored with the banana, choose the orange.” The “banana” seems to be the constitutional recipe—once tasty, now bland. The “orange,” by contrast, appears to be a fresh, acidic, vibrant alternative… In this panel, the speakers will offer their perspectives on the dialectic between the banana and the orange, between autocracies and democracies, limited and unlimited democracies, constitutionalism and populism, or else a leap into the void that could lead to banana republics, orange republics, and even illiberal ones.