Prague Constitutional Seminar Series: Luka Glušac (22. května od 16:30)

Katedra ústavního práva zve na poslední jarní seminář Prague Constitutional Seminar Series:

Na semináři vystoupí Luka Glušac (University of Belgrade). Představí svůj paper Towards an Inductive Theory of the Fourth Branch of Power: A Road Map.

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Seminář se uskuteční ve čtvrtek dne 22. května od 16:30 v místnosti č. 38.

Akce se uskuteční v anglickém jazyce. 

Všichni jsou vřele vítáni!

Bio
 
Luka Glušac is the Deputy Director and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the same university. Prior to joining the Institute, he spent a decade working in public administration and with international organizations.

His research and advisory work focus on the intersection of the rule of law, security, and human rights. He specializes in the institutional design of accountability mechanisms—particularly ombuds institutions and anti-corruption agencies—and their relationship with the legislative and executive branches. As an international expert, he has contributed to strengthening parliaments and independent oversight bodies in numerous countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

His research has been published in various international academic journals, including Politics and Governance, Human Rights Law Review, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, International Journal of Human Rights, and Journal of Human Rights Practice. His 2023 book, published by Ubiquity Press (London), explores the role of ombuds institutions in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular focus on security sector governance. His forthcoming book (with Routledge), co-authored with Daniel Reimers, examines ombuds institutions for the armed forces.

Anotace
 
Existing research indicates that 89 out of the 100 world’s most recent/recently revised constitutions have independent state bodies, such as anti-corruption agencies, audit offices or ombuds institutions. These institutions now exist in nearly every constitutional democracy and increasingly form part of the core architecture of governance. The emergence of these institutions has caused discomfort for the doctrine of the separation of powers. They are often considered to lie “outside” or alongside the traditional three branches, raising important questions for constitutional theory, democratic accountability, and state institutional design. Despite their ubiquity, fourth-branch institutions remain under-theorized. No single definition captures the full range of oversight bodies worldwide, and existing frameworks struggle to account for their hybrid mandates and constitutional positioning. This paper underscored the need for inductive, descriptive, and comparative research. It argues that both formal (“Big-C”) constitutions and various (“small-c”) practices are essential for understanding how these institutions function and evolve in different political contexts. How can we learn what is already out there? How can we generalize and abstract it into a theory? This paper suggests building an inductive theory of the fourth branch because it is both informed by the empirical reality and provides fertile ground for theory-building. The research design presented in this paper aims to provide a road map towards a robust, comparative theory of the fourth branch, while embracing pluralism in institutional design and innovation in constitutional thought.