Who to trust?

Who to follow?

Who to obey?

These questions are central to our systems of government. A government cannot function if it does not have authority – but that authority is often taken for granted.

Where does authority come from? What is it based on? How is it maintained – or lost? These are the questions which the Foundations of Institutional Authority project will explore.

Our project examines a question that is fundamental to systems of constitutional government: from where do public institutions get their authority?

Constitutional law tends to assume that authority comes from the law: that people comply with an instruction because it comes from an official designated by law.

But the reality is often much more complicated. An institution’s authority may be influenced by multiple factors: its history, identity, popularity, or levels of public trust. An institution’s authority can also change over time. It can become stronger – or it can collapse.

The goal of the research is to investigate this issue by talking directly to the people whose views shape institutional authority: political leaders, government officials and – most importantly – ordinary people. By asking people their views on the institutions that govern them, the project team hopes to build a better understanding of how constitutional systems actually operate.

The Foundations of Institutional Authority (FIAT) is an interdisciplinary research project based at the Centre for Constitutional Studies in the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin and funded by a European Research Council Consolidator grant.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 819877)

News & Events

Public Law, Publication

The Separation of Powers and the Administrative State’ in Mathieu Leloup et al

By Zigrand M and Carolan E ‘The Separation of Powers and the Administrative State’ in Mathieu Leloup et al (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of the Separation of Powers (Cambridge University Press 2026) Keywords: Constitutional culture; Democracy;

May 29, 2026

Public Law, Publication, Sweden

Perceptions of Sweden’s Welfare State: Cause for Concern?

By Orlaith Rice This article critically explores perceptions of the Swedish welfare state, three decades after the much-documented Choice Revolution fundamentally altered the traditional model. This research examines qualitative data from focus group interviews conducted in Sweden in 2021 and 2022. This paper investigates the current status of folkhemmet (the people’s home) according to those who experience it. From its […]

February 20, 2026

Public Law, Publication, Sweden

Migration, Crime, and Politics: Democratic Decay in Sweden and Ireland

By Orlaith Rice By examining the current status of Sweden’s constitutional democracy, this book addresses two complex societal problems: forced migration and democratic decay. The interdisciplinary empirical approach finds a relationship between right-wing populism and non-Western migration to Sweden. Based on extensive qualitative research with Swedish residents, the book develops both the meta-concept of democratic decay and crimmigration theory. […]

February 20, 2026