Post Sovereign Constitution Making:
Learning and
Legitimacy
by Andrew Arato (Author)
Constitutional politics has become a major terrain of
contemporary struggles. Contestation around designing, replacing, revising, and
dramatically re-interpreting constitutions is proliferating worldwide. Starting
with Southern Europe in post-Franco Spain, then in the ex-Communist countries
in Central Europe, post-apartheid South Africa, and now in the Arab world,
constitution making has become a project not only of radical political
movements, but of liberals andconservatives as well. Wherever new states or new
regimes will emerge in the future, whether through negotiations, revolutionary
process, federation, secession, or partition, the making of new constitutions
will be a key item on the political agenda.
Combining historical comparison, constitutional
theory, and political analysis, this volume links together theory and
comparative analysis in order to orient actors engaged in constitution making
processes all over the world. The book examines two core phenomena: the
development of a new, democratic paradigm of constitution making, and the
resulting change in the normative discussions of constitutions, their creation,
and the source of their legitimacy. After setting out a theoretical framework for
understanding these developments, Andrew Arato examines recent constitutional
politics in South Africa, Hungary, Turkey, and Latin America and discusses the
political stakes in constitution-making. The book concludes by offering a
systematic critique of the alternative to the new paradigm,populism and
populist constituent politics.
