Democracy & Sovereignty: Inquiring Into the Relation Between Understandings of Sovereignty and Modes of Citizen Participation

We believe that political power belongs to the people. This idea is expressed in the concept constituent power, made famous by abbé Sieyes in the French revolutionary period. Constituent power is the power of the people to determine their legal and political order. It challenges attempts to impose a political order on people who do not participate in its establishment and institution. For legal scholars, people exercise constituent power through institutions (elections, courts, assemblies, referendums). For political philosophers, constituent power precedes and legitimizes the constitutional order. Thus, they argue that it must be exercised freely, undetermined by institutions. The dichotomy between these positions confuses current academic debates on the democratization of constitutional change and on the democratic legitimacy of supranational institutions (for example the EU). I aim for a better understanding of constituent power. First, I will provide an overview of contemporary and historical understandings of constituent and constituted power. I then use this overview to develop a ‘spectrum’ account of constituent power. Instead of focusing on dichotomies, I will place ‘modes’ of constituent and constituted power – mass demonstrations, courtrooms, assemblies, etc. – on a spectrum. This, I believe, will offer new approaches to debates on constituent power in debates on the democratization of constitutional change and the legitimacy of supranational institutions.