Morality, Identity and “Constitutional Patriotism”

Abstract

In a modern, plural society, there can be no settled agreement on the concrete legal content of a country's constitution. The idea of the constitution is nonetheless pivotal in contemporary, liberal-minded theories of political justification, such as the ones advanced by Ju È rgen Habermas and John Rawls. Justification in these theories depends finally on``constitutional patriotism,'' a consciously shared sentiment arising from an ethical assessment of their country by the country's people, according to which the country credibly pursues a certain regulative political ideal for which the constitution stands.

Liberal Legitimacy and the Question of Respect

“…This also addresses Habermas's need to respond to some similar criticism on this point, the point of his foundations (Michelman , 270–1).…”

Prohibiting the people: Populism, procedure and the rhetoric of democratic desire

“…13 As Habermas (1988) puts it, "In the proceduralist paradigm, the public sphere is not conceived simply as the back room of the parliamentary complex, but as the impulse-generating periphery that surrounds the political center: in cultivating normative reasons, it affects all parts of the political system without intending to conquer it" (p. 442). See also Rawls (1996), Michelman, (2001, and Urbinati, (2014). 14 That is, "the idea that political attachment ought to center on the norms, the values and, more indirectly, the procedures of a liberal democratic constitution," in preference to either ethno-nationalist or perfectionist forms of solidarity (Müller, 2007, p. 1).…”

“…As Habermas () puts it, “In the proceduralist paradigm, the public sphere is not conceived simply as the back room of the parliamentary complex, but as the impulse‐generating periphery that surrounds the political center: in cultivating normative reasons, it affects all parts of the political system without intending to conquer it” (p. 442). See also Rawls (), Michelman, (), and Urbinati, ().…”

Constitutional patriotism, migration and the post-national dilemma

“…There are a number of internal differences between accounts of constitutional patriotism offered by different theorists (Ingram 1996, Markell 2000, Michelman 2001, Lacroix 2002, Cronin 2003, Nanz 2006, Hayward 2007; however, I mainly focus here on one of the most influential and robust recent accounts of constitutional patriotism and the one that contains the most sustained consideration of issues surrounding migration, that developed by Müller (2007).…”