Rosenfeld's plural constitutionalism

Abstract

The Identity of the Constitutional Subject is an intricate and challenging study of the ways in which distinctly constitutional conceptions of the individual and of political community interrelate with other registers of individual and collective identity. Michel Rosenfeld’s monograph covers an impressive range of constitutional inquiry, offering a wealth of insights and mining a deep seam of conceptual innovation. Yet just because his concerns are so diverse and so diverting, Rosenfeld’s main thesis is slow to emerge, and his central arguments take a long time to come to the boil. Indeed, it is only really in the extensive part three of the book that the overall point and direction of the ambitious theoretical edifice elaborated in part one and the historical case studies pursued in part two become apparent. The carefully paced and complexly routed development of Rosenfeld’s main thesis is also a function of his distinctive methodology. Rosenfeld is remarkable in the present generation of Anglophone constitutional theorists for the way in which he combines a search for a general theory of constitutional significance with a full-blown comparative approach. Rosenfeld strives to say something of broad application about the role of constitutional thought and practice in the late modern political order. However, unlike many of his colleagues, he does not confine himself, either explicitly or implicitly, to a particular jurisdiction (typically, United States or United Kingdom) or to a particular family of jurisdictions (for example, common law or commonwealth constitutions) or even to a particular binary distinction between families or types of jurisdiction (such as common law versus civilian systems). Rather, his typologies are rich, multiple, and complexly overlain. Yet, while inevitably complicating his story and prolonging its narrative tension, Rosenfeld’s conscientious and finely woven comparativism also contributes significantly to the compelling quality of his central thesis—to our sense that it demands to be taken seriously. So to the thesis itself. In this latest work, Rosenfeld builds significantly upon the pluralist themes already prominent in many of his previous writings.2 Pluralism has become a popular and influential perspective among a particular type of constitutional