Constituent power. A history

Jurisprudence ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Carlos Pérez-Crespo
Keyword(s):  
Constituent Power

Constituent Power

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nimer Sultany
Keyword(s):  
Political Order ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Constitution Making ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter argues that scholarly debates about constituent power presuppose a distinction between constituent power and constitutional form that is neither theoretically compelling nor practically illuminating. In contrast to constitutionalists, it argues that constituent power is inexhaustible, the revolution not being reducible to an event and thus constitution-making fails to terminate constituent power. In contrast to populists, it argues that constituent power does not operate in a constitutional vacuum because the judiciary imposes constitutional continuity through unwritten constitutional principles. The judiciary also polices will formation during revolutionary upheaval, as reflected in Egyptian and Tunisian judicial rulings and legal debates relating to the formation and functioning of constituent assemblies. Finally, the overlap between constitutive and legislative functions in the practice of constituent assemblies, and the deflation of the constituent power’s political agency are inconsistent with theories that present constituent power as an unbounded political agency that establishes a new political order.

scholarly journals Transnational partisan networks and constituent power in the EU

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Wolkenstein
Keyword(s):  
Constituent Power ◽  
The Eu

scholarly journals Constituent power and civil disobedience: Beyond the nation-state?

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E Scheuerman
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Proper Interpretation

Radical democratic political theorists have used the concept of constituent power to sketch ambitious models of radical democracy, while many legal scholars deploy it to make sense of the political and legal dynamics of constitutional politics. Its growing popularity notwithstanding, I argue that the concept tends to impede a proper interpretation of civil disobedience, conceived as nonviolent, politically motivated lawbreaking evincing basic respect for law. Contemporary theorists who employ it cannot distinguish between civil disobedience and other related, yet ultimately different, modes of political illegality (e.g. conscientious objection, resistance, revolution). The essay also examines Jürgen Habermas’ recent contributions to a theory of mixed or dualistic (postnational) constituent power, conceding that Habermas avoids many theoretical and political ills plaguing competing radical democratic theoretical retrievals. Nonetheless, Habermas’ attempt to salvage the idea of constituent power as part of his reformist agenda for the European Union not only breaks with his earlier understandable skepticism about the idea but also risks trimming the admirably ambitious sails of his radical democratic interpretation of civil disobedience.

scholarly journals Why Europe Does not Need a Constitution: On the Limits of Constituent Power as a Tool for Democratization

Res Publica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aliénor Ballangé
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Cautious Approach ◽  
Theoretical Hypothesis ◽  
The Eu

AbstractIn this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an opportunity for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments.

scholarly journals A fundação da sociedade civil e o titular do poder constituinte em Hobbes e Espinosa: entre Cila e Caribde / The civil society foundation and the holder of constituent power in Hobbes and Spinoza: between Scylla and Charybdis

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Marina França Santos
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Constituent Power

O presente trabalho se propõe a fazer uma reflexão crítica da tradição constitucionalista por meio do diálogo com as ideias de direito e de estado natural, de sociedade civil e de pacto social; noções centrais à construção do pensamento político e jurídico ocidental. Discutem-se, sob perspectiva, os legados ao constitucionalismo de Hobbes e Espinosa. Conclui-se, optando-se pela visão espinosana, que a fundação da sociedade civil deve ser uma escolha pelo reforço dos direitos fundamentais e que de tal defesa depende a titularidade comum, plural e democrática do poder político.

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