The project investigates the role of quantitative indicators (understood as instruments capable of measuring the trend of a phenomenon that cannot be directly observed) in the constitutional system.
The investigation will focus on specific areas considered as qualitatively decisive for the development of the constitutional system and for the form of state (i.e., the fundamental purposes pursued by the state community): the Covid-19 emergency, environmental policies, and budget policies. The use of quantitative indicators is frequent in the areas mentioned above, providing significant opportunities for an in-depth analysis of their impact on constitutional law.
The project’s articulation and the tasks’ allocation among the different units will follow the traditional breakdown of constitutional law research. In particular, the investigation will focus on the role of indicators in defining both the legal norm’s structure and the layout of the sources of law (University of Palermo), their impact on the regulation and protection of fundamental rights (University of Trento), and their capability to determine the form of government (i.e., the distribution of political power among the public authorities) and the Republic’s territorial articulation (University of Bologna).
The project will be based on an interdisciplinary approach: constitutionalists, scholars in public comparative law and international law/EU law, a statistician, a finance scientist, a quantitative sociologist, and an environmental engineer will make this investigation possible. With their contribution, the project aims to propose a deconstruction of the relevant indicators, revealing not only their assumptions, but also their latent objectives and scientific roots.
The project will try to answer the crucial question that drives the research: to what extent can the coordinates drawn by the 1948 Constitution be represented or "incorporated" by the quantitative indicators that are scattered in the legal system, thus guiding public policies? The study’s aim is to address questions that can be identified with four key words (legitimation, responsibility, integration, and justification), related to the constitutional system. The investigation will verify whether this process of “quantifying” society and, consequently, politics and law, has led to a transformation of the legal system into a “new” Constitutional State, characterized by renewed procedures and criteria of legitimacy and by a different order of values.
To answer these questions, the research would also develop a classification of the indicators based on (a) their nature, (b) their specific purpose, (c) the norm that incorporates them and (d) their institutional weight. The classification will lead to the formulation of a set of guidelines meant for institutions that use indicators, with the aim of making their process of construction, use and scrutiny more open, transparent, and democratic to citizens’ eyes.
