ANATOMY OF A CONSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY: LEGAL TOOLS FOR DISSECTING THE US AND SPANISH CONSTITUTIONAL MODELS

It is quite difficult to try to define the enigmatic notion of constitutional identity and its scope of application. In view of the difficulties to reach a precise definition of constitutional identity and the absence of consensus among legal and political science scholars, this article tries to provide a juridical approach to what characterizes the Spanish and American constitutional identity. Part II of this paper offers a brief overview of the Spanish and American constitutional models, in light of their particular constitutional histories as they shape their constitution making or drafting processes and, potentially, their constitutional identities. Part III proposes a variety of legal instruments and sources, in and outside the constitutional texts, to show potential identifying aspects of a particular national constitutional identity in general, and of an American and Spanish constitutional identity in particular. Part IV, drawing from the instruments suggested in Part III, provides a succinct normative construction of Spanish and American constitutional identity, in light of the aforementioned identifying elements or mechanisms.