Constituent Power
A History

Explores the history of the idea of constituent power over five key events, from the French Revolution to the present.

Lucia Rubinelli (Author)

9781108707138, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 March 2023

278 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.409 kg

From the French Revolution onwards, constituent power has been a key concept for thinking about the principle of popular power, and how it should be realised through the state and its institutions. Tracing the history of constituent power across five key moments - the French Revolution, nineteenth-century French politics, the Weimar Republic, post-WWII constitutionalism, and political philosophy in the 1960s - Lucia Rubinelli reconstructs and examines the history of the principle. She argues that, at any given time, constituent power offered an alternative understanding of the power of the people to those offered by ideas of sovereignty. Constituent Power: A History also examines how, in turn, these competing understandings of popular power resulted in different institutional structures and reflects on why contemporary political thought is so prone to conflating constituent power with sovereignty.

Introduction
1. Sieyès and the French Revolution
2. Constitutional Politics in Nineteenth-Century France
3. The Weimar Republic
4. Constitutional politics in post-World War II Europe
5. Arendt and the French Revolution
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], History of ideas [JFCX]