Annotation
The course is focused on the often marginalised relationship between historical economic and social development and historical law. The constitutions, constitutional debates and the interpretation of constitutions by the courts and legal scholars have been (and are) not only determined and formed by economic and social interests, but also were used as a tools of these interests to change the direction of the development of a society, of the rights of the people and of their group behaviour.
The course is focused on the 19th and 20th century and on the selected countries of the Central European region (the area of modern Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Poland). The course is intended for Erasmus students with no or very limited knowledge of Czech language (the reading texts and recommended literature are in English).
The aim of the course is to provide a solid orientation in the historical constitutionalism and constitutional thought in relation to economic and social history of their time – useful for every historian of modern and contemporary era.