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In recent decades, several countries have witnessed the rise of populist politics, both in established and \u2018emerging\u2019 democracies. From a public law perspective, populists tend to criticise the disconnection between ordinary citizens and the liberal-democratic institutions that are supposed to represent them. In their view, representative democracy is filled with slow, artificial, cumbersome and unnecessary legal-institutional procedures, rules and processes, which ultimately fail to give voice to the people, understood in collectivist and unitarist terms. For populists, political power has unjustly been taken away from the people and placed in the hands of distant intermediaries, particularly elites, institutions and experts, which are often depicted as unaccountable. The avowed aim of populism, therefore, is to be the \u2018authentic voice of democracy<\/a>\u2019 and to offer a direct and unmediated link with ordinary citizens, to provide a means to \u2018reenchant\u2019 democracy<\/a> and, ultimately, to restore the primacy of the people. This is to be achieved, notably, through identity-and similarity-based appeals to authenticity, but also through the exercise of the \u2018constituent power\u2019 of the people or nation and the use of majoritarian and plebiscitary instruments such as referendums. As a result, the rise of contemporary populism has been accompanied by a shift of focus from the main, traditional institutions of constitutional democracy and modern democratic governance \u2013 including legislatures and political parties \u2013 to individual leaders and politicians, who claim to offer a better, faster and more direct link with the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, these institutional dynamics, as I argue in my new monograph Populism and Courts in an Age of Constitutional Impatience<\/em> (Hart, 2026)<\/a>, do not operate in a vacuum; they take place in the context of what sociologists and social theorists have called \u2018social acceleration<\/a>\u2019, referring mainly to various interrelated components of the social acceleration of contemporary life. These include technological acceleration, social change or transformation and the heightened tempo of everyday life. From a spatiotemporal perspective, populists take advantage of this social acceleration and the existing (spatio)temporal contours of liberal democracy in order to put forward an alternative conception of democratic representation and a constitutional project based on spatial proximity as well as temporal efficiency and rapidity. These dynamics directly contribute to the reconfiguration of public law, as well as of its institutional and normative order. I call this phenomenon the \u2018constitutional impatience\u2019 of populism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u2018Constitutional Impatience\u2019 of Populism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This populist conception of representation \u2013 and the constitutional project it is associated with \u2013 has several spatiotemporal components of significant importance, with concrete implications for the institutions of liberal constitutional democracy. First, from the perspective of space, populism is based upon proximity, similarity and authenticity. Following the idea of a substantial identity between the rulers and the ruled, populists put forward a conception of democracy and a constitutional project that aims to remove means of mediation, from institutional mediators to mainstream media, thereby favouring fast-paced, immediate and direct communication (and indeed fusion) between gouvernants<\/em> and gouvern\u00e9s<\/em>. Through their emphasis on the need for direct, authentic and immediate democratic means, populists reorganise and redraw the pre-existing spatiotemporal contours of liberal constitutional democracy, with a view to shortening \u2013 and, ideally, removing altogether \u2013 the distance between voters and their elected representatives. Second, from the perspective of time, populists want to do things faster: the temporal orientation of populist politics, discourses and imaginary is characterised by a sense of urgency and expeditiousness, which acts as a catalyst for social acceleration. Rejecting liberal-democratic forms of mediation, populists often put forward a \u2018politics of instantaneity<\/a>\u2019, which focuses on the executive power (as the most responsive and time-efficient branch of government, particularly compared to the seemingly slow, detached and unresponsive legislature), various means of direct democracy and the (re-)politicisation of liberal-democratic institutions and instruments, including courts and constitutions. Their claim is that by redrawing the temporal contours of liberal democracy and circumventing the delays built into liberal democracy, the voice of the people can be directly and immediately heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questioning the Role of Courts Against the \u2018Constitutional Impatience\u2019 of Populism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is precisely in this context of social acceleration and, I argue, of populist-driven \u2018constitutional impatience\u2019, that the role of the courts comes under scrutiny. In recent years, many populist-led attempts to weaken the institutional role of the courts have been made in the name of \u2018the people\u2019 or \u2018democracy\u2019, while judicial resistance or intervention has often been characterised as an \u2018assault on democracy<\/a>\u2019. In a similar fashion, individual judges have also been singled out as \u2018enemies of the people<\/a>\u2019. Despite these attacks, several constitutional law scholars have praised the judiciary for its ability, capacity (and, in some cases, duty) to perform democracy-enhancing functions, notably by constraining the executive and by acting as a bulwark against authoritarian and populist threats. In fact, some liberal-oriented scholars and actors have forcefully argued that it is precisely when populism thrives that the role of the judiciary becomes all the more important<\/a>. This is because from a more theoretical perspective, the legitimacy of judges differs from that of political branches, in that it stems from a \u2018complex constellation<\/a>\u2019 that consists of professional expertise and institutional autonomy, amongst other elements. Under a similar reasoning, courts, as independent institutions, have the ability to constrain the power of the political branches and to provide counter-majoritarian protection against majoritarian politics. When representation fails, courts can also offer, it is said, a second democratic channel<\/a>. Moreover, the judiciary is understood to be able to \u2018forestall [the] descent into executive command<\/a>\u2019 and to \u2018provide a respite, frustrating political exclusions in the form of lustrations, ensuring the ability of dissident parties to operate, and most significantly, reinforcing a separation of powers to limit the executive<\/a>\u2019. Some scholars have built on the above to make more specific claims regarding the ability of courts to offer a constitutional-democratic response to contemporary populism. For example, it has been convincingly argued that courts (notably in the US and the UK) can, through their proceedings, play the role of \u2018decelerators\u2019 vis-\u00e0-vis the \u2018instantaneous\u2019 conception of democracy<\/a> put forward and defended by populists, and thus contribute to the restoration of the \u2018rushed process of democratic learning\u2019. While these authors do not necessarily view courts as a panacea against populism, they generally argue that the judiciary has a key role to play in defending constitutionalism and liberal constitutional democracy more broadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, a closer look in this monograph \u2013 mainly through three case studies, including two from non-traditional and relatively understudied regions from the Global South and (or) \u2018periphery\u2019 and one from the so-called \u2018established democratic order\u2019 \u2013 reveals a more nuanced picture and, in a similar way, a more complicated relationship between populism and constitutionalism. In the first case study, which focuses on the aftermath of the 2018 \u2018Velvet Revolution\u2019 in Armenia<\/a>, I discuss the possibility that courts can indeed decelerate the populist impatience to promote and implement constitutional change or legal reforms, but they can do so to such an extent that it may, in fact, become a form of institutional obstruction<\/em>. In such contexts, the judiciary \u2013 instead of securing democratic spaces, as strong and independent courts are often expected to do \u2013 can potentially act as a constraint on political liberalisation and might even become an \u2018authoritarian enclave<\/a>\u2019, hindering democratisation processes following a democratic revolution. In such conditions, the populist confrontation with the judiciary may be indicative of a more positive relationship between populism and constitutionalism than standard narratives suggest. The second case study, on Ecuador under the presidency of Rafael Correa (2007\u20132017), paints a different picture. Despite noteworthy achievements such as a significant reduction in poverty and inequality levels, the case study highlights the possibility of a somewhat negative relationship between populism and liberal constitutionalism, particularly from an institutional and separation of powers perspective. More specifically, it discusses how captured courts<\/a>[CD1]<\/a> \u2013 that is, courts controlled or dominated by political actors \u2013 can, in fact, accelerate<\/em> (rather than decelerate) the populist flow of time by becoming enablers or even active agents of executive consolidation, notably through the exercise of their judicial review powers<\/a>, directly contributing to the aggrandisement of an impatient and omnipotent executive<\/a>. The third and final case study, which focuses on the United Kingdom in the period that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum, suggests a rather mixed relationship between populism and constitutionalism and offers a more positive picture for institutional deceleration. It reveals that, in the right circumstances, courts can perform \u2013 and indeed did perform, in at least two<\/a> high-profile cases<\/a> \u2013 a certain stabilising function by both slowing down the populist acceleration of political time and<\/em> ensuring that the institutional mechanics of constitutional governance, including the sometimes lengthy and time-consuming constitutional decision-making processes, are duly followed. Nonetheless, and as I argue, the more substantive virtues of judicial deceleration \u2013 including its alleged contributions to democratic learning as part of the multistage process of constitutional-democratic governance<\/a>, or the role of judges as \u2018educators\u2019<\/a> more broadly \u2013 are grounded in empirical claims that remain, ultimately, difficult to verify in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, these case studies reveal that populism\u2019s relationship with constitutionalism is complex and context-dependent. Far from yielding analogous outcomes across time and space, it produces divergent tensions and impacts, thereby challenging assumptions about both the institutional role of courts and the nature of constitutionalism itself. The book thus highlights the importance of contextual and comparative analysis \u2013 particularly of understudied jurisdictions in the Global South or at the periphery \u2013 for understanding more fully the legal-political ramifications of populism as a global phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raphael Girard is the author of Populism and Courts in an Age of Constitutional Impatience (Hart, 2026)<\/a> and a Senior Lecturer at Exeter Law School<\/a>. He is also a lawyer, member of the Barreau du Qu\u00e9bec since 2016. You might like to read his \u2018Voting from Abroad ahead of Germany\u2019s 2025 Snap Election\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/strong> on this Blog.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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