Vanishing point: how the future shapes constituent power

Since the large-scale political transformations of the 1990s, we have been witnessing a revival of the category of constituent power – broadly understood as the democratic right of ‘the people’ to make and change constitutions. More recently, this shift has been met with scepticism. Today’s challenges to the concept hold it responsible for the erosion of constitutional democracies through populist and authoritarian mobilisation. At the same time, democratic movements within and outside Europe have formulated their demands in the language of constituent power, claiming legitimacy for acts of constitutional contestation and renewal.

Our Professor in Politics Jonathan White has contributed a chapter, "Vanishing Point: How the Future Shapes Constituent Power," to The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power published by Oxford University Press in February 2026.

The book examines the intellectual roots as well as paradigmatic agents, sites, and manifestations of constituent power today. In recent decades, scholars, as well as political actors, have rediscovered the category and used it in ever new ways, challenging traditional accounts of its scope and function. But while new and creative applications may have inspired political developments and led to innovation in political and constitutional theory, the proliferation of accounts of constituent power has brought with it some concept stretching.

Book summary

"This Handbook takes inventory of the state of the art, critically examines new ideas, and puts them on a systematic footing. In sixty chapters, it explores new paths in the intellectual history of constituent power (Part I); systematically develops the idea of constituent power in its relation to neighbouring concepts such as sovereignty (Part II); examines constituent power’s role and meaning in the context of different types of polities, including international institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations (Part III); investigates the plural manifestations of constituent power in terms of practices and agents, ranging from revolutionary violence to citizens’ assemblies (Part IV); and tackles new challenges and developments such as the prefigurative politics of protest movements or ascriptions of constituent power to nature (Part V)."