Beyond the Post-Sovereign State? The Past, Present and Future of Constitutional Pluralism

19 Pages Posted: 24 Jul 2019

See all articles by Michael A. Wilkinson

Michael A. Wilkinson

London School of Economics - Law School

Date Written: June 17, 2019

Abstract

Constitutional pluralism is a theory for the post-sovereign European state. This state-type can only be made sense of historically, emerging out of postwar European reconstruction through the repression of popular sovereignty and restraining of democracy associated with various forms of depoliticisation, including the project of European integration. It starts to become unsettled at Maastricht, just as Neil MacCormick lays the ground for its theoretical development with his Lecture, ‘Beyond the Sovereign State’. This unsettling evolves from a series of irritants into a full-blown crisis in the recent decade, with sovereignty claims returning both from the bottom-up and the top-down, to the extent that we can legitimately ask whether we are now moving ‘beyond the post-sovereign state’? This is all missed in a constitutional pluralist literature that evades material issues of democracy and political economy.

Suggested Citation

Wilkinson, Michael A., Beyond the Post-Sovereign State? The Past, Present and Future of Constitutional Pluralism (June 17, 2019). LSE Legal Studies Working Paper No. 9/2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3405418 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3405418

Michael A. Wilkinson (Contact Author)

London School of Economics - Law School ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

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