The “constitutionally adopted ideology”between history and comparativism

Abstract

How can the concept of "constitutionally adopted ideology," developed by Prof. Washington Peluso Albino de Souza, relate to historical and foreign constitutions? Would it be possible to expand the concept, giving it a broad meaning, to analyze constitutional texts in their entirety beyond the economic constitution? Would it be possible to expand the concept, giving it a broad meaning, to test constitutions of the past in the light of this analytical category? Using the work of the jurist from Minas Gerais – who introduced the discipline of Economic Law in Brazil – and his disciples – such as Giovani Clark and Ricardo Camargo – in the theoretical framework, we sought to demonstrate the relevance of the interpretative scheme consigned in the idea of "constitutionally adopted ideology," through the analysis of several contemporary and past constitutions, in an attempt to bring a concept dear to Economic Law closer to the areas of Legal History and Comparative Law. Since the adopted ideology is that defined by the current constitution, in each period and in each country, we have a temporal dimension and a spatial dimension of analysis, a diachronic axis and a synchronic axis for the object of study, according to the methodology created by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). In other words, each ideology adopted by the different constitutional texts around the world, or at least traces of the different ideological currents that influenced the creation of the text, can be analyzed from this perspective. We defend the use of this analytical category to evaluate not only the economic constitution, but the constitutional texts in their entirety, including the parts related to the organization of the state and the bills of rights, and to encompass historical examples prior to the advent of continuous state economic intervention and the relevance of the social question in constitutionalism.