Ming-Sung Kuo (University of Warwick – School of Law) & Hui-Wen Chen (University of Warwick) have posted Finding the Place in Constitutional Democracy (Mark Graber et al (eds), Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? Volume II (OUP, forthcoming)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The people” stands at the center of current studies of the populist challenge facing constitutional democracies across the globe. Yet the people also stand in places, suggesting a blind spot in analysis of the concept of the people in constitutional democracy and its role in the latter’s current simmering crisis: the place. To shed light on the relationship between the people and the place in the construction of the constitutional order as a common political space and the current challenge facing constitutional democracies, this chapter looks into the significance of the place to constitutional governance in two stages. It first makes an observation of the relationship between the people and the place under the pressure of double deterritorialization entailed from immigration and the forces of globalization. It then examines the significance of the place to constitutional ordering and the institutional construct of a constitutional common space. A two-part argument is advanced. First, resting on a sense of place, the territoriality of political representation gives institutional shape to the imagined constitutional common space. Second, the pressure of double deterritorialization is erosive of the sense of place, undercutting the relationship between the people and the place, with the people feeling displaced and unplaced, and hence the constitutional democracy as a common political space.