Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T00:17:56.124Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contemporary constitutionalism and the dialectic of constituent power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2012

CHRIS THORNHILL
CHRIS THORNHILL*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Building, 4 Bute Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RT
*
*Tel: 44 (0)141 3305076; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the changing status of constituent power in contemporary constitutionalism. It considers how, at face value, contemporary constitutional law reflects a post-constituent constitutional order, which is defined by a rupture with classical constitutional principles, such that the extra-legal source of constitutional order is diminished. However, it argues that the common perception of a decline in constituent power in constitutional norm construction is marked by an excessively literalistic understanding of the origins of constitutional norms and practices. As an alternative, drawing on systems-theoretical methodologies, the article proposes a functionalist, sociologically attuned reconstruction of the historical content of constitutional concepts, including the concept of constituent power. Through this perspective, it explains that constituent power, in conjunction with constitutional rights, always acted, not as an externally founding source of political agency, but as an inner projection of the political system, which served the internal organization of the political system as a distinct societal domain. The article concludes that the transnational constitutional models which are widespread in contemporary society, far from negating constituent power, re-articulate its primary functions, and they realize potentials for preserving the autonomy of the political system which constituent power always contained.

Keywords

basic rightsconstituent powerconstitutional revolutionsconstitutional sociologytransnational constitutional norms
Type
Articles
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , November 2012 , pp. 369 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, W. P. 2001. First American constitutions: Republican ideology and the making of the state constitutions in the revolutionary era. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Alter, K. 1996. “The European court’s political power.” West European Politics 19(3):458–87.Google Scholar
Amar, A. R. 1998. The Bill of Rights. Creation and reconstruction. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Arato, A. 2000. “Carl Schmitt and the revival of the doctrine of constituent power in the United States.” Cardozo Law Review 21:1739–47.Google Scholar
Arendt, H. 1977 [1963]. On revolution. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Baum, M. L. and Fritz, C. G.. 2000. “American state constitution-making: The neglected state constitutional sources.” Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 27:199–242.Google Scholar
Beaud, O. 1994. La puissance de l’état. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, D. A. 1994. Lawyers and citizens. The making of a political elite in old regime France. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bellamy, R. 2007. Political constitutionalism. A republican defence of the constitutionality of democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Benvenisti, E. and Downs, G.. 2011. “National courts review of transnational private regulation.” Tel Aviv University Law Faculty Papers Working Paper 125:1–18.Google Scholar
Berman, P. S. 2007. “A pluralist approach to international law.” Yale Law Journal 32:300–29.Google Scholar
Bilder, M. S. 2008. “Idea or practice: A brief historiography of judicial review.” Journal of Policy History 20(1):6–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bisson, T. N. 2009. The crisis of the twelfth century. Power, lordship, and the origins of European government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Böckenförde, E.-W. 1991. Staat, Verfassung, Demokratie. Studien zur Verfassungstheorie und zum Verfassungsrecht. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Boehl, H. J. 1997. Verfassunggebung im Bundesstaat. Ein Beitrag zur Verfassungslehre des Bundesstaates und der konstitutionellen Demokratie. Berrin: Dunker und Humblot.Google Scholar
Bradburn, D. 2009. The citizenship revolution. Politics and the creation of the American union 1774–1804. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Brunkhorst, H. expected forthcoming 2013. “Europe in Crisis – An Evolutionary Genealogy.” In Law and the formation of modern Europe: Perspectives from the historical sociology of law, edited by Thornhill, C. and Madsen., M. R.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, M. A. and Sharpe, K.. 2010. “Andean left turns: Constituent power and constitution-making.” In Latin America’s left turns: Politics, policies and trajectories, edited by Cameron, M. A. and Herschberg, E., 61–78. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Cappelletti, M. 1981. “Nécessité et légitimité de la justice constitutionnelle.” Revue internationale de droit comparé 33(2):625–57.Google Scholar
Carré de Malberg, R. 1920/22. Contribution à la théorie générale de l’État, 2 vols. Paris: Sirey, II.Google Scholar
Chesterman, S. 2004. You, the people. The United Nations, transitional administration, and state-building. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Colón-Ríos, J. 2010. “The legitimacy of the juridical: Constituent power, democracy, and the limits of constitutional reform.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 48:199–245.Google Scholar
Colón-Ríos, J. 2011. “Carl Schmitt and constituent power in Latin America.” Constellations 18(3):365–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dann, P. and Al-Ali, Z.. 2006. “The internationalized Pouvoir Constituant – Constitution-making under external influence in Iraq, Sudan and East Timor.” Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 10:423–63.Google Scholar
Diggelmann, O. and Altwicker, T.. 2008. “Is there something like a constitution of international law? A critical analysis of the debate of world constitutionalism.” Zeitschrift für ausländisches und öffentliches Recht 68:623–50.Google Scholar
Douglas-Scott, S. 2006. “A tale of two courts: Luxembourg, Strasbourg and the growing European human rights acquis.” Common Market Law Review 43: 619–65.Google Scholar
Douglas-Scott, S. 2011. “Europe’s constitutional mosaic: Human rights in the European legal space – Utopia, dystopia, monotopia or polytopia?” In Europe’s constitutional mosaic, edited by Walker, N., Shaw, J. and Tierney, S., 97–134. Oxford: Hart.Google Scholar
Dugard, J. 1997. “International law and the South African constitution.” European Journal of International Law 8:77–97.Google Scholar
Dyzenhaus, D. 2012. “Constitutionalism in an old key: Legality and constituent power.” Global Constitutionalism 1(2):229–60.Google Scholar
Echeverria, D. 1985. The Maupeou revolution. A study in the history of libertarianism. France, 1770–1774. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Edling, M. M. 2003. Revolution in favor of government. Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the making of the American state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Egret, J. 1962. La pré-révolution française (1787–1788). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Elliot, J. (ed). 1941. The debates in the several state conventions on the adoption of the Federal Constitution as recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787, 2nd edn, 5 vols. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, III.Google Scholar
Ely, J. W. Jr. 2000. “The Marshall Court and property rights: A reappraisal.” The John Marshall Law Review 33:1023–61.Google Scholar
Farrand, M. (ed). 1911, The records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 3 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, vol I.Google Scholar
Fassbender, B. 2007. “The meaning of international constitutional law.” In Transnational constitutionalism. International and European models, edited by Tsagourias, N., 307–28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, D. 2004. “The impact of human rights on the UK legislative process.” Statute Law Review 25(2):91–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, N. 2005. “Imposed constitutionalism.” Connecticut Law Review 37:857–89.Google Scholar
Fossum, J. E. and Menéndez, A. J.. 2010. The theory of constitutional synthesis: A constitutional theory for a democratic European Union. London: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Frerichs, S. 2008. Judicial Governance in der europäischen Rechtsgemeinschaft. Integration durch Recht jenseits des Staates. Baden-Baden: Nomos.Google Scholar
Fritz, C. G. 2008. American sovereigns. The people and America’s constitutional tradition before the Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F. 2004. “The imperative of state-building.” Journal of Democracy 15(2):17–31.Google Scholar
Goldstein, L. F. 1986. “Popular sovereignty, the origins of judicial review, and the revival of unwritten law.” The Journal of Politics 48(1):51–71.Google Scholar
Greene, J. P. 2011. The constitutional origins of the American revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grimm, D. 1991. Die Zukunft der Verfassung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1992. Faktizität und Geltung: Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Haines, C. G. 1932. The American doctrine of judicial supremacy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Haltern, U. 2005. Europarecht und das Politische. Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar
Helfer, L. R. and Alter, K. J.. 2009. “The Andean Tribunal of Justice and its interlocutors: Understanding preliminary patterns in the Andean Community.” International Law and Politics 41:871–930.Google Scholar
Hinarejos, A. 2009. Judicial control in the European Union: Reforming jurisdiction in the intergovernmental pillars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschl, R. 2007. “The new constitutionalism and the judicialization of pure politics worldwide.” Fordham Law Review 75:721–53.Google Scholar
Hobson, C. F. and Teute, F. (eds). 1990. The papers of John Marshall, 9 vols. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, VIII.Google Scholar
Höffe, O. 1999. Demokratie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Hulsebosch, D. J. 2005. Constituting empire. New York and the transformation of constitutionalism in the Atlantic world, 1664–1830. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Jacobson, D. and Ruffer, G. B.. 2003. “Courts across borders. The implications of judicial agency for human rights and democracy.” Human Rights Quarterly 25(1):74–92.Google Scholar
Kaiser, J. 1959–60. “Zur gegenwärtigen Differenzierung von Recht und Staat.” Österreichische Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht 10:413–23.Google Scholar
Kavanagh, A. 2009. Constitutional review under the UK Human Rights Act. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klabbers, J., Peters, A. and Ulfstein, G.. 2009. The constitutionalization of international law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, C. 1996. Théorie et pratique du pouvoir constituant. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Klug, H. 2000. Constituting democracy. Law, globalism and South Africa’s political reconstruction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, L. D. 2004. The people themselves. Popular constitutionalism and judicial review. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krisch, N. 2006. “The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law.” European Journal of International Law 17(1):247–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruman, M. W. 1997. Between authority and liberty. State constitution making in revolutionary America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Kumm, M. 2004. “The international rule of law and the limits of the internationalist model.” Virginia Journal of International Law 19:19–32.Google Scholar
Laboulaye, E. 1872. Questions constitutionelles. Paris: Charpentier.Google Scholar
Lafayette, Marquis de [Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier] 1839. Mémoires, correspondences et manuscrits, 12 vols. Brussels: Hauman et Comp, VII.Google Scholar
Lienesch, M. 1988. New order of the ages. Time, the constitution, and the making of modern American political thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Loughlin, M. 2009. “In defence of Staatslehre.” Der Staat 48(1):1–27.Google Scholar
Luhmann, N. 1965. Grundrechte als Institution. Beiträge zur politischen Soziologie. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot.Google Scholar
Luhmann, N. 1984. “Staat und Politik. Zur Semantik der Selbstbeschreibung politischer Systeme.” Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Sonderheft 15: Politische Theoriengeschichte. Probleme einer Teildisziplin der Politischen Wissensschaft: 99–125.Google Scholar
Luhmann, N. 2000. Die Politik der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Luhmann, N. 2008. Ideenevolution. Beiträge zur Wissenssoziologie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Lutz, D. S. 1980. Popular consent and popular control. Whig political theory in the early state constitutions. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana University Press.Google Scholar
Madison, J., Hamilton, A. and Jay, J.. 1987 [1787–88]. The Federalist Papers. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Maier, P. 2010. Ratification. The people debate the constitution 1787–1788. London: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Masterson, R. 2011. The separation of powers in the contemporary constitution. Judicial competence and independence in the United Kingdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maus, I. 2011. Über Volkssouveränität. Elemente einer Demokratietheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
McCrudden, C. 2000. “A common law of human rights? Transnational judicial conversations on constitutional rights.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 20(4):499–532.Google Scholar
McDonald, F. 2000. States’ rights and the union. Imperium in Imperio 1776–1876. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, E. S. 1988. Inventing the people. The rise of popular sovereignty in England and America. New York/London: Norton.Google Scholar
Morris, R. B. 1940. “Judicial Supremacy and the Inferior Courts in the American Colonies.” Political Science Quarterly 55(3):429–34.Google Scholar
Mousnier, R. 1945. La venalité des offices sous Henri IV et Louis XIII. Rouen: Maugard.Google Scholar
Mullett, C. F. 1966. Fundamental law and the American Revolution 1760–1776. New York: Octagon Books.Google Scholar
Negri, A. 1999. Insurgencies. Constituent power and the modern state, translated by Boscagli, M.. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. and Weingast, B.. 1989. “Constitutions and commitment: The evolution of institutions governing public choice in seventeenth-century England.” The Journal of Economic History 44:803–32.Google Scholar
Paust, J. P. 2003. International law as law of the United States, second edition. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pernice, I. 1999. “Multilevel Constitutionalism and the Treaty of Amsterdam: European Constitution-making Revisited?” Common Market Law Review 36:703–49.Google Scholar
Pernice, I. 2000. Kompetenzabgrenzung im Europäischen Verfassungsverbund: Antrittsvorlesung. Berlin: Humboldt-Universität, Juristische Fakultät.Google Scholar
Pernice, I. 2006. Das Verhältnis europäischer zu nationalen Gerichten im europäischen Verfassungsverbund. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pernice, I. 2010. “La Rete Europea di Costituzionalità – Der Europäische Verfassungsverbund und die Netzwerktheorie.” Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 70:51–71.Google Scholar
Peters, A. 2001. Elemente einer Theorie der Verfassung Europas. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot.Google Scholar
Peters, A. 2006. “Compensatory constitutionalism: The function and potential of fundamental international norms and structures.” Leiden Journal of International Law 19:579–610.Google Scholar
Pincus, S. 2009. 1688. The first modern revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Pole, J. R. 1966. Political representation in England and the origins of the American Republic. London/New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rakove, J. N. 1997a. Original meanings. Politics and ideas in the making of the constitution. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Rakove, J. N. 1997b. “The origins of judicial review: A plea for new contexts.” Stanford Law Review 49(5):1031–64.Google Scholar
Reid, J. P. 1976. “‘In an inherited way’: English constitutional rights, the Stamp Act debates, and the coming of the American Revolution.” Southern California Law Review 49:1109–30.Google Scholar
Schmitt, C. 1928. Verfassungslehre. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot.Google Scholar
Schwöbel, C. E. J. 2010. “Situating the debate on global constitutionalism.” International Journal of Constitutional Law 8(3):611–35.Google Scholar
Sieyès, E.-J. 1789a. Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-Etat?, 2nd edn. Paris.Google Scholar
Sieyès, E.-J. 1789b. Préliminaire de la constitution: Reconnaissance et exposition raisonnée des droits de l’homme & du citoyen. Versailles: Ph.-D. Pierres.Google Scholar
Sieyès, E.-J. (1796). Collection des écrits. Paris: C. F. Cramer.Google Scholar
Slaughter, A.-M. 1995. “A typology of transjudicial communication.” University of Richmond Law Review 29:99–137.Google Scholar
Slaughter, A.-M. 2003. “A global community of courts.” Harvard International Law Journal 44:191–219.Google Scholar
Snowiss, S. 1990. Judicial review and the law of the constitution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Stein, E. 1981. “Lawyers, judges and the making of a transnational constitution.” The American Journal of International Law 75(1):1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone Sweet, A. 2004. The judicial construction of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet, A. 2008. “Constitutions and judicial power.” In Comparative politics, edited by Caramani, D., 217–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Surrency, E. C. 1964. “The lawyer and the revolution.” The American Journal of Legal History 8(2):125–35.Google Scholar
Tarr, A. H. G. 1998. Understanding state constitutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Teubner, G. 2012. Constitutional fragments. Societal constitutionalism and globalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thornhill, C. 2011. A sociology of constitutions. Constitutions and state legitimacy in historical-sociological perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornhill, C. 2012. “The formation of a European constitution: An approach from historical-political sociology.” International Journal of Law in Context 8(3).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thouret, J.-G. 1790. Discours. En ouvrant la discussion sur la nouvelle organisation du pouvoir judiciaire. Paris: Imprimerie nationale.Google Scholar
Troper, M. 2006. “Constitutional interpretation.” Israel Law Review 39(2):35–50.Google Scholar
Tucker, T. T. 1983 [1784]. “Conciliatory hints, attempting, by a fair state of matters, to remove party prejudice.” In American writing during the founding era 1760–1805, edited in 2 vols. by Hyneman, C. S. and Lutz, D. S., 606–30 Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, I.Google Scholar
Turgot, A.-R.-J. 1844 [1776]. “Édit du Roi, portant suppression des jurandes.” In Turgot, Oeuvres, edited in 2 vols by Daire, E. and Dussard, H., 302–16. Paris: Guillaumin, II.Google Scholar
Tushnet, M. 1999. Taking the constitution away from the courts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tushnet, M. 2009. “The inevitable globalization of constitutional Law.” Virginia Journal of International Law 49(4):985–1006.Google Scholar
Vandenbergh, M. P. 2005. “The private life of public law.” Columbia Law Review 105(7):2029–96.Google Scholar
Voßkuhle, A. 2010. “Multilevel cooperation of the European constitutional courts: Der Europäische Verfassungsgerichtsverbund.” European Constitutional Law Review 6:175–98.Google Scholar
Walker, N. 2007. “Post-constituent constitutionalism? The case of the European Union.” In The paradox of constitutionalism. Constituent power and constitutional form, edited by Loughlin, M. and Walker, N., 247–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, N. 2009. “Reframing EU Constitutionalism.” In Ruling the world? Constitutionalism, international law, and global governance, edited by Dunoff, J. L. and Trachtman, J. P., 149–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, N. 2012. “The place of European Law.” In The worlds of European constitutionalism, edited by de Búrca, G. and Weiler, J. H. H., 57–104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ward, A. 2007. Judicial review and the rights of private parties in EU law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weiler, J. 1991. “The transformation of Europe.” The Yale Law Journal 100:2403–83.Google Scholar
Williams, N. B. 1941. “Independent judiciary born in colonial Virginia.” Journal of the American Judicature Society 24:124–27.Google Scholar
Williams, R. F. 1988. “Experience must be our only guide: The state constitutional experience of the framers of the Federal Constitution.” Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 15:403–27.Google Scholar
Wood, G. S. 1969. The creation of the American Republic 1776–1787. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Wood, G. S. 1992. The radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Wood, G. S. 1993. “Foreword: State constitution-making in the American Revolution.” Rutgers Law Journal 24:911–26.Google Scholar
Zweig, Egon 1909. Die Lehre vom Pouvoir Constituant. Ein Beitrag zum Staatsrecht der französischen Revolution. Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar