Constituent power in a “community of equals”

GARGARELLA ROBERTO

Revus

Klub Revus

Año: 2020 vol. 41 p. 1 - 15

1581-7652

In this article, I use an ideal example related to what I call ?a community of equals? to explore the difficult problems involved in the idea of constituent power. After presenting my version of this ?egalitarian community,? I discuss some theoretical controversies that have emerged around the same matter, focusing on the work of Bruce Ackerman, Joel Colón-Ríos, Yaniv Roznai, and more particularly, Andrew Arato. I argue that discussions about constituent power should neither remain confined within the old paradigm of ?sovereign constitution-making,? nor become exclusively studied under the alternative paradigm of ?post-sovereign constitutionmaking.? Constitutionalism needs to recover its democratic character if it wants to keep its egalitarian promise intact.