Conclusion

Abstract

This concluding chapter summarizes the main insights of the book, which present constituent power as an eminently juridical concept, one that can play a key role in determinations of legal validity and that places important demands on constitutional orders. It also identifies avenues for further research, particularly with respect to the imperative mandate, primary assemblies, the doctrine of unconstitutional constitutional amendments, the legality of informal but democratic constitution-making processes, and the enforceability of constituent mandates. The chapter concludes by arguing that to approach constituent power through legal lenses does not necessarily entail an attempt to domesticate an otherwise revolutionary concept. In the case of this book, such an approach seeks to realize part of the radical democratic potential of the concept: that, as in Rousseau, it is the sovereign people, and not its representatives, who must determine the content of the fundamental laws.