The Constitution of Radical Democracy

Abstract

Radical democrats such as Sheldon Wolin and Jason Frank often frame radical democracy and liberal constitutionalism as mutually opposed. I argue that they are mutually constitutive. Liberal constitutionalism entails a bundle of normative commitments that support the free expression of radical democratic actors who revolt against one fundamental law in order to write another. Radical democracy enacts the spirit of revolution within the liberal constitutionalist imperative to critically interrogate the fundamental law and prepare oneself—if necessary—to overthrow it. Furthermore, liberal equality—the idea that everyone counts and that everyone counts “only as one”—underwrites the political initiative of the “deviants” and “outsiders” at the center of radical democrats’ concern. Popular sovereignty derives much of its appeal from the liberal individualist principle of self-determination, the idea that individuals should rule themselves. The personal and political rights of both democratic actors and their opponents are the invisible constitution of radical democracy. Anyone calling himself a democrat must treat that constitution as binding.