Modern Constitutional Theory

Words That Bind presents a careful and nuanced treatment of constitutional interpretation and judicial review. By bringing constitutional theory and contemporary political philosophy to bear on each other, John Arthur illuminates these topics as no other recent author has.

Offers a public law theory that elaborates the idea of human dignity to illuminate and justify innovations in constitutional practice.

Inspired by the works of Professor Marcelo Neves, in this book colleagues come together to explore how their research has been influenced by non-European and post-colonial approaches. With a foreword by Karl-Heinz Ladeur, it features essays written by leading scholars in the fields of sociology of law and constitutional theory – including Hauke Brunkhorst, Darío Rodrígues, Kimmo Nuotio and Pablo Holmes. The content is divided into four sections, the first of which, “Law, State, and Global Crisis,” covers topics related to the modern constitutional state, the crisis of global capitalism, and the global rule of law. The second, “Symbolic Constitutionalization,” analyzes challenges to constitutionalism in the “Peripheral Modernity.” The authors in the third section examine how the concept of “Transconstitutionalism” can shed new light on contemporary debates concerning global public law. In turn, the last section of the book, “Systems Theory and Public Law,” addresses systems theory issues in the fields of legal history and administrative law. The book presents a relevant and original discussion encompassing such diverse fields as constitutional theory, international law, systems theory, and sociology of constitutions.

Popular sovereignty - the doctrine that the public powers of state originate in a concessive grant of power from "the people" - is the cardinal doctrine of modern constitutional theory, placing full constitutional authority in the people at large, rather than in the hands of judges, kings, or a political elite. This book explores the intellectual origins of this influential doctrine and investigates its chief source in late medieval and early modern thought - the legal science of Roman law. Long regarded the principal source for modern legal reasoning, Roman law had a profound impact on the major architects of popular sovereignty such as François Hotman, Jean Bodin, and Hugo Grotius. Adopting the juridical language of obligations, property, and personality as well as the classical model of the Roman constitution, these jurists crafted a uniform theory that located the right of sovereignty in the people at large as the legal owners of state authority. In recovering the origins of popular sovereignty, the book demonstrates the importance of the Roman law as a chief source of modern constitutional thought.

Through a critical appraisal of the European Union and its legal system, this book evaluates the extent to which constitutionalism as an empirical idea and normative ideal can be adapted to institutions beyond the state.