№ 2 - 2006
Medushevsky A.N.
Theory of Constitutional Cycles

The article presents, in a concentrated form, the results of the author's researches of the problems related to the methodology of analysis and of prognostication of constitutional processes in transitional societies. In the basis of the approach he proposes, lies the conception of constitutional cycles, that makes it possible to establish the correlation of the static and the dynamic components of the constitutional process. Special attention is given in the article to the analysis of the Russian constitutional cycles. According to the author's conclusion, the source of the cyclic dynamics in Russia, as in other modernizing societies, is the conflict between law and social reality. It is exactly the development of this conflict that determines the logic of the alternation of the cycle phases — logic that presupposes transition from deconstitutional-ization (sharp drop of effectiveness of the established legal norms) to constitutional -ization (search for the ways out of the constitutional crisis), and then to reconstitu-tionalization (adjusting the excessive constitutional expectations and proceeding in reverse, in the direction of old norms and practices).