Post-Sovereign Constituent Power

Abstract

Abstract This chapter revisits and develops my earlier accounts of post sovereign constitution-making. Historically, the concept is derived from a series of constitutional politics from late twentieth-century Spain, Central Europe, and South Africa. Systematically, it stands for processes of multistage constitution-making, with a negotiated first and electorally legitimated second stage, linked through unchangeable constitutional principles, detailed constitution-making rules, deadlock-breaking mechanisms, and judicial enforcement, all incorporated in an interim constitution. The 2019 and 2022 Chilean efforts first reintroduced the differentiation between an existing legislature and a constitutional convention that was absent from the final stage of the post-sovereign paradigm. Second, Chilean constitution designers added a ratificatory referendum for both efforts. The results of the two failures indicate that the post-sovereign process can, indeed, ‘go wrong’, even if not in the same sense as its sovereign predecessor, which often led to dictatorships.

Key findings

• ▸The post-sovereign paradigm is characterized by a multistage process linking a negotiated first stage with an electorally legitimated second stage.
• ▸Key structural elements include unchangeable constitutional principles, detailed constitution-making rules, deadlock-breaking mechanisms, and judicial enforcement within an interim constitution.
• ▸Chile's 2019 and 2022 attempts reintroduced the differentiation between a legislature and a constitutional convention but ultimately failed despite adding ratificatory referendums.

Keywords

Identifiers

DOI

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192873170.013.0042

Journal

The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power

Year

2026