Populists in Power and Constitutional Counternarratives

Abstract

In this essay I shall comment on A Pluralist Theory of Constitutional Justice by Professor Michel Rosenfeld, by developing three points that have to do with the legacy of Carl Schmitt’s constitutional theory. The first is about the progressive weaponization of constitutional law that characterizes what I call the populist constitutional counternarrative. In particular, I will explore how populists in power use constitutional law. The second point has to do with the notion of constituent power in a context of comprehensive pluralism. The third point is about the relationship between constitutionalism and political theology. The intuition behind this is that populisms (in the plural) have evolved, so to speak, to the point of constructing a true constitutional counternarrative. By constitutional counternarrative, I mean the abuse of the categories of constitutional theory and the tools of constitutional law with the aim of manipulating the wording of constitutional provisions.

Keywords: populism, democracy, Carl Schmitt, constitutional counter-narrative, Michel Rosenfeld