What are the Main Constitutional Lessons II

Abstract

A true republic presupposes democracy, but does democracy presuppose the state? The state represents the organizational structure of an autonomous, self-organized community. It is needed to ensure the freedom, security, and welfare of the citizens, and hence also to explicate the meaning of democracy based on citizens’ equal rights. State based democracy ensures reflexivity and reversibility in a self-governing citizenry. It prevents rulers’ self-selection and speaks to the basic legitimating principles of autonomy and accountability. The core defining characteristic of a state is that it has instruments for mobilizing economic, military, and political resources in order to achieve collective goals. The question is whether the state form is a necessary requirement for democracy to prevail, or if a non-state entity such as the EU can make up a democratic system of government. Modern constitutions are faced with the double task of ensuring legitimate authority and social integration, and it might therefore be possible to disconnect them from the state form and rather link them in with the project of modernity, whose normative telos is to make the addressees of the law also their authors. Constitutions may not presuppose the state; but how can the laws and rights be brought into existence and be made effective without the coercive instruments of a state?

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