Language, Democracy, and the Paradox of Constituent Power

Rezensionen / Stimmen

"This is a careful and important study of the language of founding moments in modern political thought and four specific cases. It is not a study of the violence, dispossession, genocide, ecocide, racism, displacement and colonization that founding moments enact and try to conceal. Rather, it is a critical investigation of the dense labyrinth of paradoxical claims and counter-claims that the captivating language of founding generates and to which we remain captive, often without realizing it. Frost shows us how to be more self-aware of the paradoxes, disinclined to take their illusions for either truth or reconciliation, and, thereby, able to think critically."

James Tully, Professor emeritus, University of Victoria

"Frost's book is a welcome and important intervention in contemporary debates about constituent power. It provides a novel way of thinking about the concept, while at the same time shedding light on its - until now largely unexplored - relationship to declarations of independence. It is a work that political and constitutional theorists, as well as contemporary constitutional lawyers, interested in founding moments will now have to take into account."

Joel Colon-Rios, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington

"Frost's innovative approach to the problem of naming the subject of constituent power combines a deft treatment of the thorny problems of sovereignty of representation as they reveal themselves in declarations of independence with clever readings of contemporary moments of collective expression, from the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic to the prospect of declaring an independent Scotland. A book that will certainly be of interest to political theorists and legal scholars alike."

Sarah Drews Lucas, Lecturer in Political Theory, Exeter University

"This is a remarkable book. Amidst a every-growing number of contributions to the subject, Catherine Frost offers a radically new way of looking at the problem of constituent power which will be of interest to the students of constitution-making across disciplinary confines, and which deserves to be read by anyone interested in the role of the people in radical political transformations in general."

Zoran Oklopcic, Carleton University