CFLPP Monthly Seminar: 'A Theory of Limited Constituent Power'

The second 2025 Easter Term session of the monthly seminar run by the Cambridge Forum for Legal & Political Philosophy will take place on Wednesday, 28 May at 3:00pm, through Zoom.

The seminar will be chaired by Professor Raffael Fasel, who is an Assistant Professor in Public Law in the Law Faculty and a Fellow of Jesus College. The title of his talk is 'Pouvoir constituant limité: A theory of limited constituent power' (There is no assigned reading).

Abstract: The concept of constituent power is facing increasing resistance. Critics are calling for it to be abandoned due to its susceptibility to abuse, its clash with the international legal order, and its romanticization of constitution-making processes driven by elites. However, such calls are premature. This article demonstrates that a potent theory of constituent power can be developed to address these challenges: the theory of pouvoir constituant limité. By reviving the once-dominant non-positivist tradition of constituent power, I argue that constituent power should be understood as the people’s power to make constitutional choices, constrained by norms such as the peremptory norms of international law, which have both a moral and legal character. I contrast this theory with three prevalent approaches to constituent power – decisionism, normativism, and relationalism – and show that pouvoir constituant limité is uniquely equipped to meet the challenges of constituent power while preserving its democratic potential.

Anyone interested in moral or political or legal philosophy in Cambridge or beyond is welcome to participate in the seminar. If you wish to receive the Zoom invitation, you should please request it from Matthew Kramer (mhk11@cam.ac.uk). Please write from an institutional e-mail account rather than from a generic account such as Hotmail or Gmail.