Constitutionalism, populism, and the imaginary of the authentic polity: a socio‐legal analysis of European public spheres and constitutional demoicratization

Priban, Jiri ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4760-6734 2023. Constitutionalism, populism, and the imaginary of the authentic polity: a socio‐legal analysis of European public spheres and constitutional demoicratization. Journal of Law and Society 50 (S1) , S26-S44. 10.1111/jols.12434

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Abstract

The sociology of constitutionalism emphasizes the duality of constitutions as both power limitations and power enhancements. Following the socio‐legal perspective, this article focuses on the constitutional imaginary of the public sphere and distinguishes it from the imaginary of the authentic polity, in which the constituent power of the people is protected against the corrupting effect of representative institutions and technocratic bodies. The promise of authenticity is behind the recent resurgence of populism and the constitution of what Zygmunt Bauman describes as ‘explosive communities’. The final part of the article focuses on the transnational politics and law of the European Union (EU) and discusses its possible responses to the imaginaries of constitutional populism – most notably, the emergence of European public spheres and demoicracy. Without the constitutional imaginaries of an anti‐explosive transnational and democratically constituted community, further enhancement of the power of EU institutions will always lead to populist backlash at the national and local levels of its member states.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff Law & Politics
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0263-323X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 August 2023
Date of Acceptance:	1 August 2023
Last Modified:	05 Oct 2023 17:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/161501

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