Abstract
Modern thinking about democracy is largely governed by the concept of constituent power. Some versions of the concept of constituent power, however, remain haunted by the spectre of totalitarianism. In this article, I outline an alternative view of the identity of the people whose constituent power generates democratic authority. Broadly speaking, constituent power signifies the idea that all political authority, including that of the constitution, must find its source in some idea of ‘the people’, whose authority is never exhausted by constituted power. The deficiency I seek to address is that of asking who the people is to whom any claim of authority refers, while avoiding the pitfalls of totalitarianism. I show the most famous totalitarian view of constituent power – advanced by Carl Schmitt – to be not only politically unsavoury but also ontologically unjustified. To outline my alternative view, I draw on Jacques Derrida’s concept of just decisions to argue that the undecidable inaugurates collective responsibility by demanding a response. This suggests a view of ‘the people’ as a doing rather than a being. I conclude by showing how this avoids totalitarian views of popular sovereignty by demonstrating its congruency with Claude Lefort’s democratic theory as opposed to totalitarianism.
Highlights
Modern thinking about democracy is largely governed by the concept of constituent power
To put the question another way, if the concept of constituent power is meant to advance a view of the source of democratic legitimacy and holds that such legitimacy must always involve some reference to the people or the demos, it is often overlooked that the demos itself raises a question of legitimacy
I argue that this account is better able to avoid some of the main pitfalls plaguing modern conceptions of constituent power, the purported threat of totalitarianism exemplified by the view offered by Carl Schmitt
Summary
Modern thinking about democracy is largely governed by the concept of constituent power. Schmitt’s view, remains haunted by the spectre of totalitarianism Schmitt theorises what he calls the constitution-making power as the pre-political ontological existence of the people displaying substantial homogeneity. The people politically affirm its homogeneity through the constitution by drawing a line between friend and enemy, to the possible detriment of all those falling on the wrong side of that division.3 For this reason, some scholars consider the concept of constituent power to be tainted by its affiliation with totalitarianism and suggest discarding it altogether.. My account of the demos behind constituent power is praxis-based in that it argues that the people is a doing, not a being, in that it is irreducible to a set of theoretical principles but only appears in its activity (deciding the undecidable). It seems to treat democratic participation entirely in the mode of ‘we, both’, whereas, as Andreas Kalyvas has demonstrated, the very etymology of constituent power presupposes a level of togetherness that models such as Goodin’s seem unable – or at best awkwardly able – to accommodate. the extant debate on the boundary problem has very limited bearing on the concept of constituent power
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