The Hydraulics of Constitutional Claims: Multiplicity of Actors in Constitutional Interpretation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article argues that multiple actors play a role in raising, and resolving, constitutional claims on both sides of the Atlantic. There are common functional demands for democratic involvement in shaping constitutional meaning in different countries. These constitutional claims respond to what is described in the article as a “hydraulic process.” The hydraulics analogy explains how, across various constitutional systems, similar bottom-up constitutional claims are asserted in different institutional forums. The common driver is the grassroots mobilization of societal actors (and their opponents) advancing their interpretation of the constitution through all available avenues. The precise configuration of these institutional channels is the result of “hydraulic shifts”: when societal actors are shut out of one institutional channel, they redirect their constitutional claims to alternative forums thereby engaging new institutional actors. These dynamic hydraulic responses ultimately generate a picture of multiple actors engaging in the process of constitutional interpretation. I map out these constitutional actors by using as a case study the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The four systems represent distinctive models of formal recognition of same-sex marriage, with different actors taking the lead and appearing to have the final say on this contested issue. However, I explain that in all four cases we can detect the voices of multiple actors, including notably the people themselves, in a process of legal contestation around and interpretation of fundamental constitutional principles. The case studies illustrate that common bottom-up constitutional demands respond to similar overarching hydraulic processes, which, in turn, owing to diverse political, institutional, and cultural contexts, bring in the voices of citizens and other constitutional actors in diverse ways. Analytically, the paradigm proposed in the article captures more accurately the complex institutional dynamics across various legal systems. Normatively, this framework encourages inclusive and dynamic constitutional interpretation that reflects evolving political and social demands instead of top-down delivery of constitutional meaning.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.042 | 0.046 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.020 | 0.142 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.027 | 0.053 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.028 |
| Research integrity | 0.009 | 0.014 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".