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SUMMARY:Putney Debates 2026: Constitutionalism in Times of Empire and Autocracy
DESCRIPTION:Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kliNnfh_RlCOpudqV10AIA \n  \nThe 2026 Putney Debates proposes to explore some of the conceptual and practical challenges that empire and autocracy raise for constitutionalism.  \nConstitutionalism – one of the most important ingredients of liberal democracy – is under tremendous stress in the contemporary world. There are two especially severe challenges to its central idea that political power should be limited and constrained through mechanisms such as separation of power\, rule of law and legally enforceable rights. These two related challenges are the return of empires and imperial thinking in international relations and the global rise of autocracies coupled with the tendencies towards autocratisation in some of the established liberal democracies. Empire and autocracy could be studied as separate phenomena deserving attention in their own right. But the problem with that is the synergy between them: they tend to reinforce each other because of their common origin – unrestrained power. \nThese developments raise an important question regarding the essence of constitutionalism: what is the value of constrained\, limited power in the contemporary world? The phenomena of empire and autocracy\, and the attraction they have for many\, suggest that limited power is now seen as a weakness and as a handicap in both foreign and domestic politics. Historically\, constitutionalism and limited government have made comebacks after great disasters\, but in the nuclear age\, it seems suicidal to rely on global conflicts to restore the values of limited government. What\, then\, are the other options for resuscitating constitutionalism as a key element of liberal democracy? \n  \nProgramme: \n10–10.45 am BST\nOpening Presentation (Daniel Smilov) \n10.45 am–12 pm BST\nDebate 1: Empire: Foundation of Ideas\nModerator: Sir Ivor Roberts\nPanel: Dimitar Bechev\, Rana Dasgupta\, Ivan Krastev\, Amir Paz-Fuchs \n2–3.15 pm BST\nDebate 2: Autocracy and Executive Power\nModerator: Daniel Smilov\nPanel: Richard Bellamy\, Daniel Bilak\, Richard Clary\, Ruzha Smilova \n3.30–4.45 pm BST\nDebate 3: Constitutional Authority\, Rule of Law and the Consequences of Empire and Autocracy\nModerator: Richard Clary\nPanel: Violeta Beširević\, Sionaidh Douglas-Scott\, Bogdan Iancu\, Daniel Smilov \n4.45–5 pm BST\nClosing Remarks (Daniel Smilov) \n  \nParticipants: \nDimitar Bechev is the Director of the Dahrendorf Programme at the European Studies Centre (St Antony’s College\, Oxford)\, which explores Europe’s role in a changing world and\, in particular\, relations with global players such as China\, India\, Turkey\, Russia and the United States. He is also a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe\, and teaches at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies. He is the author of several books\, among them Russia Rising: Putin’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (Bloomsbury\, 2021) and Turkey Under Erdoğan (Yale University Press\, 2022). His upcoming book\, The Scramble for Europe\, will be published by Oxford University Press in late 2026.\n \n  \n \nRichard Bellamy has served as Professor of Political Science at UCL since the founding of the post in 2005. He was the founding Head of the new Department of Political Science and Director of the School of Public Policy from 2005 to 2010. He then became the first Director of UCL’s European Institute\, which he also helped establish\, from 2010 to 2013. Richard’s research ranges from historical studies of Italian political thought post 1700 and of European liberalism 1830–1950\, through work on compromise and political ethics\, to a republican account of citizenship\, democracy and constitutionalism\, which he has applied to both the UK and the EU. His most recent monograph\, Defending the Political Constitution (Oxford University Press) was published at the start of the year. \n  \n \nVioleta Beširević is a Professor of Law at Union University Law School Belgrade and also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the European Public Law Organization. She holds an L.L.M. and an S.J.D. in Comparative Constitutional Law from the Central European University. She served as a member of the Pardon Committee of the President of the Republic of Serbia (2008–2012) and the Ombudsperson of Serbia’s Council for the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty (2009–2011)\, as well as Amicus Curiae before the Constitutional Court of Serbia. Violeta works in the fields of constitutional law\, bioethics\, EU constitutional law and human rights law. \n  \nDaniel Bilak is Senior Counsel at Kinstellar\, one of Central and Eastern Europe’s leading international law firms. He is also a CDGA Fellow. A Canadian-qualified lawyer with 30 years of professional experience in the CEE region\, Daniel is an experienced private sector and institutional reform practitioner. He currently advises clients in the energy\, agribusiness\, infrastructure and technology sectors in the region. Daniel’s public sector experience extends to rule of law\, judicial reform\, administrative reform\, and anti-corruption matters. Daniel twice served as principal adviser and chief of staff to the Minister of Justice of Ukraine. He was also Senior Integrity and Democratic Governance Adviser to successive presidents and prime ministers of Ukraine. \n  \nRichard Clary is a Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School and a CDGA Fellow. He earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and his B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College\, and began his legal career as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the US Supreme Court. Richard practised law for 40 years at Cravath\, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York City\, where he was a Partner for 35 years and served as a Managing Partner and as the Head of Litigation\, retiring at the end of 2020. He served as a Vice President of the New York City Bar Association and a Vice Chair of the New York City Legal Aid Society. A regular contributor to the Putney Debates\, Richard has authored several chapters across two related publications and co-edited Democracy in Crisis? The Putney Debates 2023 (Bloomsbury\, 2025). \n  \nRana Dasgupta is a British novelist and essayist. He is the author of Solo (2009) and Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi (Canongate\, 2014). His latest book\, After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order (Collins/Penguin\, 2026)\, offers a global history of the nation-state\, and a diagnosis of the large-scale transition engulfing the world today. He is the recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize\, the Windham-Campbell Prize\, the Prix Émile Guimet de Littérature Asiatique and the The Ryszard Kapuściński Award. He lives in France. \n  \nSionaidh Douglas-Scott is Anniversary Chair in Law at Queen Mary University of London and a CDGA Fellow. Previously she was Professor of European and Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford and\, prior to that\, Professor of Law at King’s College London. She has a broad range of legal interests but specialises in public law (including comparative constitutional law)\, human rights and legal and social theory\, often looking to context\, and to historical and comparative perspectives to inform her work. Her most recent book\, Brexit\, Union and Disunion (Cambridge University Press\, 2022) is the product of her Leverhulme Fellowship. \n  \nBogdan Iancu is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science\, University of Bucharest\, and a CDGA Fellow. His teaching and writing focus on Romanian and comparative constitutional law\, EU constitutionalism and emerging rule of law conditionalities\, history of constitutionalism and constitutional theory. He obtained his LL.B. from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași\, Romania\, followed by an LL.M. and an SJD/Dr. iur. from the Central European University\, Budapest. He has conducted research at various law faculties and institutes in Europe and North America\, including\, most recently\, a Humboldt Return Fellowship at MPI Heidelberg (2021). \n  \nIvan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences\, IWM Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations\, a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group\, European Investment Bank Global Advisory Council and the Board of Directors of GLOBSEC. He is a Financial Times contributing editor and the author of\, among others\, The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Allen Lane/Penguin\, 2019; co-authored with Stephen Holmes); After Europe (University of Pennsylvania Press\, 2017) and In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders? (TED Books\, 2013). \n  \nAmir Paz-Fuchs is the Head of the Law School and Professor of Law and Social Justice at the University of Sussex; he is also CDGA Fellow. Amir teaches and researches in labour and employment law\, jurisprudence\, social rights and social justice\, and legal aspects of privatisation. In 2014\, he established Sussex Clinical Legal Education\, was Founding Director of the Law clinics until 2022\, and he still leads on the Employment Law Clinic. Outside of the university\, Amir volunteered as an Employment Specialist and a Trustee for Citizens Advice West Sussex and is Director on the Central Application Board (Law CAB)\, the central application platform for those seeking to qualify as solicitors in England and Wales. \n  \nSir Ivor Roberts is the former President of Trinity College\, Oxford\, and a member of the CDGA Advisory Board. A British diplomat from 1968 to 2006\, he served in Lebanon\, Paris\, Luxembourg\, Canberra\, Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides)\, and was Minister in the British Embassy in Madrid and Ambassador in Belgrade\, Dublin and Rome. He was head of counterterrorism in the British Foreign Office in the 1980s. In 2009\, he published\, as editor and major contributor\, the first new edition for 30 years of the classic reference book on diplomacy Satow’s Diplomatic Practice (Oxford University Press). A revised\, centenary seventh edition was published at the beginning of 2017\, and the eighth edition came out in 2023. \n  \nDaniel Smilov is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at the Political Science Department\, University of Sofia\, a comparative constitutional lawyer and political scientist\, and a CDGA Fellow. He is the author of numerous academic publications on topics of comparative constitutional law\, party and campaign finance and the politics of contemporary populists. Holding doctorates from both the University of Oxford and the Central European University\, Budapest\, Daniel is also a programme director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies\, Sofia\, and recurrent Visiting Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at the Central European University\, Budapest/Vienna. \n  \n \nRuzha Smilova is the Political Analysis Program Director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies\, an independent non-governmental organisation which conducts research focused on public policy proposals\, assists in streamlining public debate and is committed to supporting civic participation and building an active civil society. She is also a lecturer at the Department of Political Science\, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”\, where she teaches history of political ideas and contemporary political theory. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Central European University\, Budapest\, where her dissertation on the authority of democracy won second prize in 2006 for Best Doctoral Dissertation. She specialised in political philosophy at the University of Oxford.
URL:https://cdga.org.uk/event/putney-debates-2026-constitutionalism-in-times-of-empire-and-autocracy/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Justice & Governance
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