The Constitutional Subject, Its Other, and the Perplexing Quest for an Identity of Its Own: A Reply to My Critics

Abstract

In my book The Identity of the Constitutional Subject (2010) I examined the nexus between constitutionalism, particular constitutions and constitutional identity. I argued that the construction and adaptation of a constitutional identity was essential to the coherence and viability of any working constitution. Such constitutional identity must at once negate and incorporate reworked elements of national identity and other pertinent pre- and extra- constitutional materials associated with the relevant polity. In the present essay, I reply to arguments advanced by several critics of my book with a view to clarifying and expanding on some of the book’s principal assertions. The subjects involved include the relation between constitutional identity and equality and democracy; the proper level of abstraction at which to conceive and construe distinct constitutional models; constitutional versus administrative governance at the transnational level; and the relation between the universal, the singular and the plural in the context of conceiving and deploying constitutional identities.

Keywords: constitutional identity, constitutionalism and democracy, global constitutionalism