Introduction to the material constitution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5380/rfdufpr.v63i3.60907Keywords:
Constitutional Theory. Costantino Mortati. Constitutional ordering.Abstract
What is the material context of constitutional order? The purpose of this paper is to offer an answer to that question by sketching a theory of the material constitution. Distinguishing it from related approaches, in particular sociological constitutionalism, Marxist constitutionalism, and political jurisprudence, the paper outlines the basic elements of the material constitution, specifying its four ordering factors. These are a) political unity, b) a set of institutions, c) a network of social relations, and d) a set of fundamental political objectives. These factors provide the material substance and internal dynamic of the process of constitutional ordering. They are not external to the constitution but are a feature of juristic knowledge, standing in internal relation and tension with the formal constitution. Because these ordering factors are multiple, and in conflict with one another, there is no single determining factor of constitutional development. Neither is order as such guaranteed. The conflict that characterizes the modern human condition might but need not be internalised by the process of constitutional ordering. The theory of the material constitution offers an account of the basic elements of this process as well as its internal dynamic.
References
ANDERSON, B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, 1983).
ARENDT, H. Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt, 1968).
ARISTOTLES. Politics [I.1.1252a1-7], [IV.1.1289a17-18].
BALIBAR, E. ‘The Rise and Fall of the European Union: Temporalities and Teleologies’ (2014) Constellations.
BALIBAR, E. Politics and the Other Scene (Verso, 2002).
BALKIN, J. Living Originalism (Harvard University Press, 2011).
BARSOTTI, V.; CAROZZA, P.; CARTABIA, M.; SIMONCINI, A. Italian Constitutional Justice in the Global Context (Oxford University Press 2016) 214-217.
BEARD, C. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (MacMillan, 1913).
BLOKKER, P. ‘Politics and the Political in Sociological Constitutionalism’ in P. Blokker and C. Thornhill (Ed.) Constitutional Sociology (Cambridge University Press, no prelo).
BLYTH, M. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Oxford University Press, 2013).
BREAUD, O. ‘Reframing a debate amongst Americans: Contextualizing a Moral Philosophy of Law’ (2009) International Journal of Constitutional Law.
CASTORIADIS, C. The Imaginary Institution of Society, tr, K. Blamey (MIT Press, 1997).
CHRISTODOULIDIS, E. ‘On the Politics of Societal Constitutionalism’ (2013) 20 Indiana Journal of Global Studies.
COVER, R. ‘Nomos and Narrative’ (1983) 97 Harvard Law Review 4.
CROCE, M; SALVATORE, A. ‘After Exception: Carl Schmitt’s Legal Institutionalism and the Repudiation of Exceptionalism’, in 29 Ratio Juris (2016).
CROCE, M; SALVATORE, A. The Legal Theory of Carl Schmitt (Routledge, 2012).
DELLA CANANEA, G. ‘Mortati and the Science of Public Law’ in C. Joerges, N. Ghaleigh (Ed.), Darker Legacies of Law in Europe (Hart Publishing, 2003).
DYZENHAUS, D. ‘Hermann Heller and the Legitimacy of Legality’ (1996) 16 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies.
EWING, K. ‘The Resilience of the Political Constitution’ (2013) 14 German Law Journal 2111.
FISCHER, J. ‘From confederacy to federation: thoughts on the finality of European integration’ in C. Joerges, Y. Meny and J. H. H. Weiler (eds.) What Kind of Constitution for What Kind of Polity: Responses to Joschka Fischer (Jean Monnet Program Online Papers, 2001).
GAUCHET, M. The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion (Diane Publishing, 2001).
GINSBURG, T; SIMPSER, A. (Ed.) Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
GOLDONI, M; MCCORDINDALE, C. ‘Political Constitutionalism’, in M. Sellers (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Springer, 2017) (no prelo).
GRAMSCI, A. Selection from the Prison Notebooks (International Publishers, 1971).
GRIFFITHM, J. A. ‘The Political Constitution’ (1979) Modern Law Review.
GRIMM, D. ‘Does Europe Need a Constitution?’ (1995) European Law Journal.
HABERMAS, J. Between Facts and Norms (MIT Press, 1992).
HARVEY, D. The New Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 2003).
HELLER, H. ‘Political Democracy and Social Homogeneity’ in A. Jacobson and B. Schlink (Ed.) Weimar: A Jurisprudence of Crisis (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000).
HIRSCHL, R. Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism (Harvard University Press 2004).
KELSEN, H. Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory, translated by B.L. Paulson & S.L. Paulson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
LA TORRE, M. ‘The German Impact on Fascist Public Law: Costantino Mortati’s Material Constitution’ in C. Joerges, N. Ghaleigh (Ed.), Darker Legacies of Law in Europe (Hart Publishing, 2003).
LASSALLE, F. ‘Uber Verfassungswesen’ in 2 Gesammalte Reden Und Schriften 38 (E. Bernstein, ed.).
LINDAHL, H. ‘Constituent Power and Reflexive Identity: Towards an Ontology of Collective Selfhood’, in M. Loughlin, N. Walker (Ed.), The Paradox of Constitutionalism (Oxford University Press, 2007).
LOUGHLIN, M. ‘Political Jurisprudence’ (2016) 16 Jus Politicum.
LOUGHLIN, M. ‘Ten Tenets of Sovereignty’ in N. Walker (Ed.) Sovereignty in Transition (Hart, 2003).
LOUGHLIN, M. ‘The Constitutional Imagination’ (2015) 78 Modern Law Review.
LOUGHLIN, M. Foundations of Public Law (Oxford University Press, 2010).
LUXEMBURG, R. The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism (Routledge, 2003 [1913]).
MARX, K. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Available at www.marxists.org.
MINKINNEN, P. ‘Political Constitutionalism vs. Political Constitutional Theory: Law, Power and Politics’ (2015) 11 International Journal of Constitutional Law.
MÖLLERS, C. ‘We are (afraid of) the people’, in M. Loughlin and N. Walker (Ed.) The Paradox of Constitutionalism: Constitutional Power and Constitutional Form (Oxford University Press, 2007).
MORTATI, C. L’ordinamento del governo nel nuovo diritto pubblico italiano (Giuffré, 1931).
MORTATI, C. La costituzione in senso materiale (Giuffré, 1940).
MORTATI, C. Una e indivisibile (Giuffré, 2007) § 18.
MULLER, J-W. ‘A General Theory of Constitutional Patriotism’ (2008) International Journal of Constitutional Law.
NEGRI, A. Labor of Dionysus (University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
NEGRI, A; HARDT, M. Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000) xiv.
NEVES, M. Transconstitutionalism (Hart, 2013).
POLANYI, K. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Beacon Press, 1944).
POOLE, T. Reason of State (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
POSNER, E; VERMEULE, A. The Executive Unbound (Oxford University Press, 2011).
POULANTZAS, N. State, Power, Socialism (Verso, 2014).
RANCIÈRE, J. Disagreement (University of Minnesota Press, 1999).
ROMANO, S. The Legal Order (Routledge, 2017).
SCHMITT, C. The Nomos of the Earth (Telos Press, 2006).
STRAUSS, D. The Living Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2010).
STREECK, W. ‘Taking Capitalism Seriously: Towards an Institutional Approach to Contemporary Political Economy’ (2011) Socio-Economic Review.
TEUBNER, G. Constitutional Fragments (Oxford University Press, 2012).
THORNHILL, C. A Sociology of Constitutions (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
WALUCHOW, W. A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
WILKINSON, M. ‘Is Law Morally Risky? Alienation, Acceptance and Hart’s Concept of Law’ (2010) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 441-466.
WILKINSON, M. ‘The Euro is irreversible… Or is it?’ (2015) 16 German Law Journal.
WILKINSON, M. ‘The Reconstitution of Postwar Europe: Lineages of Authoritarian Liberalism’, LSE Law Society and Economy Working Paper Series, 05-2016.
WOLIN, S. ‘The Liberal/Democratic Divide: on Rawl’s Political Liberalism’ (1996) 24 Political Theory.
WOOD, E. From Lords to Citizens: A Social History of Western Political Thought (Verso, 2011).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish in the Journal agree to the following terms:
– Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal the right of first publication, with the work licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence, allowing the work to be shared as long as proper credit is given to the authors and the initial publication in the Journal is acknowledged;
– Reusers must provide appropriate credit, include a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses the reuser or their use;
– Reusers may not apply additional restrictions, legal terms, or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits;
– Reusers must attribute credit to the creator and allow others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, exclusively for noncommercial purposes and under the same terms, in compliance with Brazilian Law No. 9,610 of February 19, 1998, and other applicable regulations.
