Deliberative, Republican, and Egalitarian Institutional Alternatives for Popular Constitutionalism
| Autor | Donald Bello Hutt |
| Cargo | llb (Universidad Austral de Chile); MA in Advanced Studies of Philosophy (Universidad de Valladolid); Doctor of Philosophy (Universities of Valladolid and Salamanca), Ph. D. in Political Theory (King's College London). Flanders Research Foundation (fwo) Postdoctoral Fellow, KU Leuven; e-mail: donaldemerson.bellohutt@kuleuven.be. orcid: 0000-000... |
| Páginas | 183-214 |
DONALD BELLO HUTT*
Deliberative, Republican, and
Egalitarian Institutional Alternatives
for Popular Constitutionalism**
Alternativas deliberativas,
republicanas e igualitarias para
el constitucionalismo popular
ABSTRACT
This article examines and proposes institutional instantiations for popular
constitutionalism. The proposal is a progressive combination of institutions
aiming at giving the citizenry the opportunity to determine what a consti-
tution means, contributing to securing their liberty in a republican sense,
implementing mechanisms of deliberation, and being respectful to a particular
understanding of political equality. It first describes popular constitutionalism
and the principles I believe should ground it. It then moves on to scrutinise
sundry institutional alternatives available in the literature. After showing
the areas where those proposals fall short of instantiating the principles here
championed, the article argues for the implementation of four mechanisms
that, I argue, do incarnate those principles.
KEYWORDS
Popular constitutionalism, republicanisms, institutional design, deliberation,
political equality.
* LLB (Universidad Austral de Chile); MA in Advanced Studies of Philosophy (Univer-
sidad de Valladolid); Doctor of Philosophy (Universities of Valladolid and Salamanca), Ph. D.
in Political Theory (King’s College London). Flanders Research Foundation (FWO) Postdoctoral
Fellow, KU Leuven; e-mail: donaldemerson.bellohutt@kuleuven.be. ORCID: 0000-0003-2979-6631.
The author wishes to thank two reviewers of this journal. My personal thanks also go to José
Luís Martí, Ignacio Giuffré, Dimitrios Kyritsis, Jeff King, and Iseult Honohan for their comments
to earlier versions of this article. The manuscript was presented at the García Pelayo Seminar
(Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, Madrid) and at the IVR Special Workshop on
“Alternatives to Liberal Constitutionalism” in Lucerne (2019). My thanks to Ana Belén Benito
and Ana Cannilla for the possibility of presenting in those events.
** Recibido el 9 de junio del 2020, aprobado el 31 de agosto del 2020.
Para citar el artículo: Deliberative, Republican, and Egalitarian Institutional Alternatives for
Popular Constitutionalism. En Revista Derecho del Estado, Universidad Externado de Colombia.
N.º 48, enero-abril de 2021, 183-214.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18601/01229893.n48.07
Revista Derecho del Estado n.º 48, enero-abril de 2021, pp. 183-214
184 Donald Bello Hutt
Revista Derecho del Estado n.º 48, enero-abril de 2021, pp. 183-214
RESUMEN
Este artículo examina y propone alternativas institucionales para el constitucio-
nalismo popular. La propuesta es una combinación progresiva de instituciones
que buscan dotar a la ciudadanía con el poder final para determinar qué significa
una constitución, contribuyendo a asegurar su libertad republicana, implemen-
tando mecanismos de deliberación, al tiempo que es respetuoso de una forma
particular de comprender la igualdad política. El artículo comienza con una
descripción del constitucionalismo popular y de los principios que considero
que deberían fundamentar la teoría. Luego, procede a examinar críticamente
diversas propuestas institucionales presentes en la literatura. Después de mostrar
las áreas en las que dichas propuestas se quedan cortas en el esfuerzo de encar-
nar los principios aquí defendidos, el artículo aboga por la implementación de
cuatro mecanismos que, según sostendré, sí se acercan más a dichos objetivos.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Constitucionalismo popular, republicanismo, diseño institucional, delibera-
ción, equidad política.
SUMMARY
Introduction. I. Popular constitutionalism: definition and principles. II. Alterna-
tives available in the literature. A. Kramer’s proposal. B. Donnelly’s “people’s
veto”. C. Pozen’s “judicial elections”. III. Republican, deliberative, and egali-
tarian proposals for popular constitutionalism. A. Commonwealth models’
institutions. B. Parliamentary deliberation and justification. C. Constitutional
mini-publics. 1. Selection methods. 2. Procedure. 3. And back to transmission.
IV. Conclusions. References
INTRODUCTION
This article examines and proposes institutional instantiations for popular
constitutionalism. The proposal is a progressive combination of institutions
aiming at giving the citizenry the opportunity to determine what a consti-
tution means, contributing to securing their liberty in a republican sense,
implementing mechanisms of deliberation, and being respectful to a particular
understanding of political equality.
The paper proceeds as follows: section I describes popular constitutional-
ism and the principles grounding my own understanding of the theory. By
relying on work undertaken elsewhere, I argue that giving the final word in
constitutional interpretation to citizens requires a republican, deliberative,
and egalitarian combination of institutional conditions and mechanisms.
185
Deliberative, Republican, and Egalitarian Institutional Alternatives…
Revista Derecho del Estado n.º 48, enero-abril de 2021, pp. 183-214
Section II examines institutional alternatives available in the literature meant
to implement popular constitutionalism. I do this to justify why additional
measures are required. I discuss proposals by Kramer, Donnelly, and Pozen,
as they are some of the most articulated ones available in the literature. These
proposals fall short of achieving popular constitutionalism’s goal of giving the
final word in constitutional interpretation to the people themselves.
Section III elaborates my own proposals. It argues for the implementation
of the following mechanisms compatible with the republican, deliberative and
egalitarian principles I champion: contestation without erga omnes effects,
commonwealth-constitutionalism’s judicial review, parliamentary delibera-
tion and justification, and interpretive constitutional mini-publics. They are
presented and defended in a progressive manner; moving from mechanisms
already available in most contemporary polities to democratic innovations
whose employment is less frequent, but which are nevertheless well grounded
in social theory.
The proposals are conditioned in different ways. First, they do not exhaust
the range of solutions necessary to realise the principles summarised in sec-
tion I. The magnitude and reach of those desiderata overflow any concrete
institutional arrangement one could propose. Institutional design must aim
at realising principles to the greatest possible extent. One must be aware,
however, that those arrangement will likely run short of reaching the objec-
tives set by their guiding principles. This is not a limitation as such, but how
regulative ideals operate.
There is also an issue of domain. Should popular constitutionalists focus
on realising the theory`s principles outside representative institutions? Or
should they aim at improving representative government? This is, I think, a
false dilemma whose resolution hinges on the notion of representation one
endorses. As I make clear below, I endorse a notion of representation that does
not disconnect representatives from the discursive preferences of those they
represent. Representative institutions, in such a model, do not exist simply
by virtue of practical necessities like scale and time. They are a necessary
component of the justification of our collective societal decisions. The ques-
tion is, then, not so much do we need representatives, but how do we facilitate
discursive transmissions from the public sphere to representative institutions.
These considerations do not treat discussions on the justification of rep-
resentative government as irrelevant. But the topic is complex enough as to
merit an examination I cannot fully provide here. I thus take sides with one
specific understanding of representation because it allows me to interpret the
relationship between ordinary citizens and representative formal institutions
as a continuum rather than as a solution for practicalities of scale. This is
compatible with and accounts for the features of popular constitutionalism I
advocate for: popular constitutionalism coexists with representative institutions.
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