This chapter proposes a methodological approach to the study of constitutions that goes beyond the written text and jurisprudence in order to incorporate the material structure of society. It interprets the factual organization and exercise of power that is allowed and enabled by foundational institutions, rules, and procedures. It also discusses the premise of material constitutionalism on the idea that the organization of political power cannot be analyzed without taking into account political and socioeconomic power structures. The chapter establishes a constitutional ideology that stands opposed to legal positivism, formalism, and proceduralism. It traces the material approach back to Niccolò Machiavelli and distinguishes between institutionalist and critical strands.
{"title":"On Material Constitutional Thought","authors":"C. Vergara","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.8","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter proposes a methodological approach to the study of constitutions that goes beyond the written text and jurisprudence in order to incorporate the material structure of society. It interprets the factual organization and exercise of power that is allowed and enabled by foundational institutions, rules, and procedures. It also discusses the premise of material constitutionalism on the idea that the organization of political power cannot be analyzed without taking into account political and socioeconomic power structures. The chapter establishes a constitutional ideology that stands opposed to legal positivism, formalism, and proceduralism. It traces the material approach back to Niccolò Machiavelli and distinguishes between institutionalist and critical strands.","PeriodicalId":218680,"journal":{"name":"Systemic Corruption","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125669390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter focuses on Rosa Luxemburg, who proposed to embrace workers' councils as a political infrastructure of emancipation at a moment when the modern party system had begun to consolidate. It explains the Social Democratic Party as a party in support of the interests of the working class, which had gained partial control of the German government. It discusses Luxemburg's realization that the liberty of the working class demanded a different political infrastructure. The chapter cites the betrayal of the revolutionary party that proved to Luxemburg the truth of Karl Marx's argument that the “working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” It highlights Luxemburg's proposal to alter the foundation and base of the social constitution by institutionalizing workers, soldiers, and peasant councils and establishing a national council of workers as part of a revolutionary constitutional political order.
{"title":"Luxemburg on Popular Emancipation","authors":"C. Vergara","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.11","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on Rosa Luxemburg, who proposed to embrace workers' councils as a political infrastructure of emancipation at a moment when the modern party system had begun to consolidate. It explains the Social Democratic Party as a party in support of the interests of the working class, which had gained partial control of the German government. It discusses Luxemburg's realization that the liberty of the working class demanded a different political infrastructure. The chapter cites the betrayal of the revolutionary party that proved to Luxemburg the truth of Karl Marx's argument that the “working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” It highlights Luxemburg's proposal to alter the foundation and base of the social constitution by institutionalizing workers, soldiers, and peasant councils and establishing a national council of workers as part of a revolutionary constitutional political order.","PeriodicalId":218680,"journal":{"name":"Systemic Corruption","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129440756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter contributes to plebeian constitutional theory by proposing to constitutionalize popular power in a “plebeian branch” that is thought through Hannah Arendt's model of parties and councils, incorporating features from the proposals that established plebeian institutions. It lays out a way to separate the few from the many that would in principle conform to the current liberal constitutional framework. It also describes institutions that would make up the proposed plebeian branch, such as a network of primary assemblies with the power to initiate and veto or repeal any law, public policy, judicial decision, and appointment as well as to update the constitution. The chapter offers a tentative juridical framework for the plebeian branch, which is meant to be incorporated into any existing representative democratic regime and is aimed at empowering plebeians. It suggests a more enduring solution to the systemic corruption of representative systems and the oligarchic domination that inevitably comes with it.
{"title":"9. Constitutionalizing the Power of Those Who Do Not Rule","authors":"C. Vergara","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.14","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter contributes to plebeian constitutional theory by proposing to constitutionalize popular power in a “plebeian branch” that is thought through Hannah Arendt's model of parties and councils, incorporating features from the proposals that established plebeian institutions. It lays out a way to separate the few from the many that would in principle conform to the current liberal constitutional framework. It also describes institutions that would make up the proposed plebeian branch, such as a network of primary assemblies with the power to initiate and veto or repeal any law, public policy, judicial decision, and appointment as well as to update the constitution. The chapter offers a tentative juridical framework for the plebeian branch, which is meant to be incorporated into any existing representative democratic regime and is aimed at empowering plebeians. It suggests a more enduring solution to the systemic corruption of representative systems and the oligarchic domination that inevitably comes with it.","PeriodicalId":218680,"journal":{"name":"Systemic Corruption","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121210556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-22DOI: 10.1515/9780691208732-003
C. Vergara
{"title":"Introduction: Crisis of the Representative Republic","authors":"C. Vergara","doi":"10.1515/9780691208732-003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691208732-003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":218680,"journal":{"name":"Systemic Corruption","volume":"203 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"113999260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter begins by providing a diagnosis for the crisis of democracy based on systemic corruption. After reconstructing from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Niccolò Machiavelli, a notion of systemic political corruption particular to popular governments, it reviews recent neorepublican and institutionalist attempts at redefining political corruption within the current political regimes. It also underscores the lack of a proper conception of systemic corruption comparable in sophistication to the one offered by ancient and modern philosophers due to the inability to account for the role that procedures and institutions play in fostering corruption through their normal functioning. The chapter proposes a definition of systemic corruption as the oligarchization of power transpiring within a general respect for the rule of law. It describes the conception of corruption that appears as intrinsically connected to increasing socioeconomic inequality, which enables the inequality of political influence and drift toward oligarchic democracy.
{"title":"Corruption as Political Decay","authors":"C. Vergara","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.6","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter begins by providing a diagnosis for the crisis of democracy based on systemic corruption. After reconstructing from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Niccolò Machiavelli, a notion of systemic political corruption particular to popular governments, it reviews recent neorepublican and institutionalist attempts at redefining political corruption within the current political regimes. It also underscores the lack of a proper conception of systemic corruption comparable in sophistication to the one offered by ancient and modern philosophers due to the inability to account for the role that procedures and institutions play in fostering corruption through their normal functioning. The chapter proposes a definition of systemic corruption as the oligarchization of power transpiring within a general respect for the rule of law. It describes the conception of corruption that appears as intrinsically connected to increasing socioeconomic inequality, which enables the inequality of political influence and drift toward oligarchic democracy.","PeriodicalId":218680,"journal":{"name":"Systemic Corruption","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124795499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter begins by presenting Niccolò Machiavelli's constitutional thought as the foundation of a type of constitutionalism that is material in its analysis of law and procedures, and anti-oligarchic in its institutional design. It recognizes the influence that socioeconomic inequalities exert over political power, in which Machiavelli embraces conflict as the effective cause of free government and strives to empower and channel emancipatory, plebeian energies through the constitutional order. It also focuses on Machiavelli's most important contribution to materialist constitutionalism: the plebeian nature of constituent power. The chapter contends that the constituent power in Machiavelli serves not as a bridge between basic principles and politics, but rather as the power exerted to resist oppression and establish plebeian and anti-oligarchic institutions. It looks at the democratic theory on the constituent power that has been conceived as the autopoietic power of the community.
{"title":"4. Machiavelli on the Plebeian Power to Create and Punish","authors":"C. Vergara","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvzgb6x2.9","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter begins by presenting Niccolò Machiavelli's constitutional thought as the foundation of a type of constitutionalism that is material in its analysis of law and procedures, and anti-oligarchic in its institutional design. It recognizes the influence that socioeconomic inequalities exert over political power, in which Machiavelli embraces conflict as the effective cause of free government and strives to empower and channel emancipatory, plebeian energies through the constitutional order. It also focuses on Machiavelli's most important contribution to materialist constitutionalism: the plebeian nature of constituent power. The chapter contends that the constituent power in Machiavelli serves not as a bridge between basic principles and politics, but rather as the power exerted to resist oppression and establish plebeian and anti-oligarchic institutions. It looks at the democratic theory on the constituent power that has been conceived as the autopoietic power of the community.","PeriodicalId":218680,"journal":{"name":"Systemic Corruption","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128185609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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