Pravar’s main academic research interests include constituent power theory, the nature of unwritten constitutional limits, and constitutional legitimacy.
His doctoral thesis was titled ‘Situating the People: The Place of Constituent Power in the UK Constitution’. Drawing on theories of sovereignty and and an account of constitutional legitimacy rooted in Bernard Williams’ political philosophy, it argues that expressions of constituent power through referendums and the devolution settlements of the UK impose non-legal constitutional constraints on the UK Parliament’s legislative authority. He received the Modern Law Review Scholarship for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.
He is currently working on two major pieces of work:
- An account of the utility of constituent power theory in explaining the unaddressed constitutional implications of referendums in the UK;
- An account of how constituent authority acts as an unwritten constitutional constraint on executive and legislative authority (forthcoming in an edited collection to be published by Hart).
In addition, he is working on shorter pieces on the conventions around referendums for constitutional changes in the UK, and on the absence of the constituent power in the UK and EU’s constitutional settlements.
Pravar has presented his research at a variety of conferences and workshops, including at the SLSA Conference 2023 (Ulster University), the Public Law Conference 2024 (uOttawa), the International Society of Public Law Conference 2026 (University College Dublin) and the World Congress of Constitutional Law 2026 (Universidad Externado de Colombia).
A full list of Pravar’s academic and policy publications can be found here.
