Constitutionalism in an old key: Legality and constituent power

Abstract

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Extraordinary partisanship in the European Union: Constituent power and the problem of political agency

“…Turning to the question of what forms of political agency are available for constituent power in the EU, one enters an academic minefield. Already with a view to the state level, constituent power has regularly been sneered at as a “democratic myth,” for the realization of which political theory is unable to offer even a single plausible model (Isensee, 1995, p. 68; see Dyzenhaus, 2012). In some ways, however, constituent power at the EU level is less mysterious.…”

Theorizing the Judicialization of International Relations

“…To the contrary, politics can become dejudicialized. In this Thematic Section, Ginsburg and Abebe (2019) focus on when states remove adjudicatory bodies from the political equation, but politics can also become dejudicialized when adjudicators lose their independence (Brinks and Blass 2017) and, more generally, when "legality" becomes less normatively or politically salient, leading governments to worry less about flouting law or legal rulings (Dyzenhaus 2012;Brunnée and Toope 2017;Alter 2019). Meanwhile, dejudicialization may occur alongside rejudicialization.…”

Constituent power and people-as-the-governed: About the ‘invisible’ people of political and legal theory

“…Amongst other things, Loughlin criticizes ‘normativism’ for substituting an autonomous concept of constitution for the state (Loughlin 2008, 2014b; see e.g. Dyzenhaus 2007; 2012). He also departs from Carl Schmitt’s ‘decisionism’ because the latter takes democracy to require some prior substantive equality of the people, a move that, according to Loughlin, leads to totalitarianism (see e.g.…”