Sieyès’s idea of constituent power
A moderate and illiberal idea of sovereignty in the French revolution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11345238 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carlos Pérez-Crespo (University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany), Carlos Eduardo Pérez Crespo (0000-0002-0975-2255, Universität Hamburg, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1029-1051 |
| Publication date | 2024-08-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of European Ideas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01916599.2024.2319390 |
| OpenAlex | W4391956707 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 46 |
Moderation and liberalism are different and in some cases antagonistic concepts. In recent years, the view that Sieyès's idea of constituent power is a moderate and liberal rendering of sovereignty has gained acceptance in intellectual history and constitutional theory literature. This claim is based on the premise that radical and illiberal readers of Rousseau's idea of sovereignty, such as Robespierre and the Jacobins, were opposed to representing the general will (volonté générale). Thus, constituent power as the exercise of power by extraordinary representatives to draft a constitution would be a liberal attempt at political moderation in the French revolution. In contrast to this liberal reading, my analysis shows that Sieyès's idea of constituent power is an illiberal attempt at political moderation. Against moderate liberal theories, constituent power demands that the extraordinary representatives of the constituent assembly must will, deliberate, and act as if they were the people themselves. These representatives have absolute powers and the mandate to create a constitution but also the imperative to perceive and mirror the sovereign will. From a political theory approach, I conclude that constituent power is not a liberal idea but a key notion of moderate illiberalism that prevailed during the French Revolution
Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Popular sovereignty · Power (physics · Sociology · Sovereignty · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence
The Paradox of Constitutionalism
A Virtue for Courageous Minds
Types of Constitutions
Constitution et pouvoir constituant
Sieyès, lecteur des physiocrates
Die Staatstheorien der Französischen Nationalversammlung von 1789
Inventing the French Revolution
The English Republican tradition and eighteenth-century France
On the Latent Illiberalism of the French Revolution
Die Diktatur.Von den Anfängen des modernen Souveränitätsgedankens bis zum proletarischen Klassenkampf
Political Theology
Republican nostalgia, the division of labour, and the origins of inequality in the thought of the Abbé Sieyès
Sieyès and republican liberty
The First Liberal Democrat
The Virtues of Political Moderation
Thomas Hobbes and the Constituent Power of the People
The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Mankind
Locke and the Non-Arbitrary
How to think beyond sovereignty
Verfassung und Konstitutionalismus
Adam Smith's Role in the French Revolution
Two Concepts of Moderation in the Early Enlightenment
The Rise of Illiberal Democracy
The Social Contract of the French
Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |