Description:
This book tackles the twofold issue of public authority and public autonomy in the modern conception of the political by analysing the notion of constituent power, its function in the modern political apparatus, and debates about its meaning and function in our own context.
Review Quotes:
"Constituent power remains a vital resource for popular politics today and yet it is often lost in an era of supranational legal institutions and transnational corporations, each of which leaves citizens feeling powerless. In this book Geneviève Nootens explains brilliantly how constituent power continues to underpin the legitimacy of political rule and offers insights into how the link between political citizenship and democratic authorisation must remain strong if new constitutional forms are to lay claim to any legitimacy. The book is an essential read for anyone interested in the political and economic changes transforming our world and of the risks we run in forsaking collective democratic agency as the vital mechanism through which to call new power structures to account."
Stephen Tierney, Professor of Constitutional Theory, The University of Edinburgh