European constitutional scholars in the digital public sphere: Reply to Somek and Paar

Abstract

In their recent article 'Europe's political constitution', Alexander Somek and Elisabeth Paar conclude: 'scholactivism is the form of constitutional law of Europe. There is nothing below or above it. It is all there is'. In this reply I want to take issue with such (rather bleak) view of what European constitutional scholarship is about. Firstly, I argue that scholactivism undermines the very conditions of scholarship as a pursuit of knowledge autonomous from both public and private power. The current attacks on academic institutions by authoritarian governments, and also the increasing dependence of research on private funders result, at least in part, from the politicization of scholarship. Secondly, I argue that we should be more critical towards the infrastructure of the digital public sphere, which Somek and Paar see to be emerging through blogs and other platforms, and be more protective of the existing practices that we inherited from our predecessors.