Varieties of populist constitutionalism: The transnational dimension

Abstract

Populist constitutionalism is an increasingly discussed topic, but so far the analysis of the interrelation between populism and constitutionalism lacks a more systematic and comparative approach, able to bring out significant variety. Most of the recent literature on the phenomenon focuses on (right-wing) populism as a threat to constitutional democracy. This Article sets out to contribute to a more comparative and comprehensive discussion of the relation between varieties of populism—situated on a continuum from left- to right-wing, but also from national to transnational—with varieties of constitutional projects. The objective of this Article is threefold. First, I argue that it is problematic to consider legal constitutionalism as exhausting the possibilities of constitutionalism. Second, if populism is reduced to right-wing projects and as an unequivocal threat to liberal democracy, it becomes difficult to distinguish between dissimilar manifestations of populist projects, in particular regarding constituent politics. Third, while hardly any attention has been paid to constitutionalism and populist claims on the transnational level, in the European context, transnational forms of populism and constituent politics manifest themselves frequently, articulating an incisive critique on the European constitutional and political status quo, and contributing to a re-imagination and democratization of the European constitutional reality.