Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law . By

Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law. By Ran Hirschl. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 320 pp. $45.00 cloth.As the epigraph to one chapter in his impressive volume, Comparative Matters: The Renaissance of Comparative Constitutional Law, Ran Hirschl offers the following exchange between the archaeologist Howard Carter and his patron, Lord Carnarvon, on Carter's entry into Tutankhamun's tomb: "Can you see anything?" "Yes, wonderful things!" The epigraph might aptly frame the volume as a whole. Hirschl's ambition is to seize a pivotal moment in the development of comparative constitutional scholarship and to help those engaged in the field to see more and better. There is a tone of excitement and affection in the pages, born of the recent and rapid global spread of constitutionalism and judicial review, which has been accompanied by a marked growth in scholarly-and juridical- interest in comparative constitutional study. Hirschl sees the scholarly possibilities attendant on such a moment and regards the comparative constitutional enterprise as poised to enrich our understanding of modern constitutional life.And yet this enthusiastic tone is accompanied by one of concern because, as Hirschl sees it, the field of comparative constitutional study is currently afflicted by "a fuzzy and rather incoherent epistemological and methodological matrix" (5), a shortfall in selfunderstanding that prevents the scholarly enterprise from realizing its potential. In particular, the range and variety of approaches that are collected under the mantle of comparative constitutional study has deprived us of a clear view of what the character of the "comparative" project is and ought to be, and of a refined sense of what methods are well calibrated to its ends. In this volume, Hirschl seeks to address this weakness by drawing the reader through the intellectual history and contemporary quandaries of comparative constitutional inquiry and by charting out a kind of methodological desiderata for the field.Indeed, the heart of Comparative Matters is a plea for comparative constitutional study to be more energetically and resolutely interdisciplinary, engaging, in particular, with the social sciences and empirical methods. The latter half of Hirschl's book is dedicated to this methodological call, with Chapter 4 urging a shift from comparative constitutional "law" to comparative constitutional "studies," signalling an enterprise more closely tied to the contextual focus of the social sciences and less anchored to conventional forms of legal analysis. One need not wholly concur with Hirschl that the style of constitutional reflection in the legal academy is quite so thin on such social and political framing to nevertheless profit from his account of why deeper engagement with the social sciences and its methods would enrich the field of comparative constitutional study. In Chapters 5 and 6, Hirschl examines key methodological tensions that must be reckoned with for the field to continue to develop (the universal versus the particular and critiques from the "global south") and offers a set of principles and methodological rules. In these latter pages, Hirschl sets out principles of case selection in small-N comparative studies and advocates for the greater use of large-N empirical studies. Hirschl is not overly sanguine about such studies, carefully noting the limits and risks involved. But he is insistent that research method must be calibrated to research aim and that if one aspires to meaningful causal claims or explanatory theories, such well-crafted studies are important arrows in the comparative constitutionalist's quiver.The force of these methodological arguments rests, however, on the work that Hirschl does in the first half of the book. The first three chapters, each fascinating and erudite, appear vastly different in their focus and character. Chapter 1 addresses the currently salient issue of top courts citing the constitutional jurisprudence of foreign countries. …