The Post-sovereign Constitution or the Return of Sovereignty?

Abstract

<Online Only>This chapter outlines how the political constitution after Maastricht developed into a paradoxical configuration, whereby EU constitutional authority was augmented in specific areas, but was subject to increasing domestic contestation. This generated heightened constitutional conflicts in formal arenas, particularly in the jurisprudence of the German Constitutional Court, which will be examined in this chapter, and social and political contestation and opposition in informal arenas (examined in the next chapter). The chapter outlines how issues of sovereignty and domestic constituent power resurfaced after their post-war sublimation, but without obvious practical moment, since the judicial practice and academic discourse of European constitutionalization continued apace, exacerbating their disconnect from popular support. The chapter concludes by considering how, in constitutional theory, the discourse of post-sovereignty becomes dominant yet highly ideological, given the concrete constitutional developments, a disconnect which is dialectically deconstructed to reveal a hollow authoritarianism.</Online Only>