Join The Baldy Center on March 25 for two special events. At noon we sponsor the lecture by Jiří Přibáň (Cardiff) on constitutional populism and explosive communities. At 4:00 p.m. we host the book talk by Paul Linden-Retek (School of Law), author of Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law (Oxford UP, 2023).

SPEAKER MARCH 25, 2024
NOON, 12:00 p.m, 509 O'Brian Hall

Jiří Přibáň (Cardiff)
Constitutional populism and explosive communities: Identity politics and authenticity in a global society

Abstract: Populist politics shows that the imaginary of the authentic polity existing truthfully and in harmony with its 'real' collective identity is common to the great variety of populist politics and continues to play a profound role in the contemporary globalised political condition including the post-national condition of the European Union. The paradox of modern constitutional democracy in which constituent power of the sovereign people, by definition unlimited, can materialise only through constituted power of a limiting legal constitution subsequently finds its specific form in the imaginary of the authentic polity by stretching the first constitutional question Who is the people as a political sovereign? into a pre-political question of What is the true and honest voice and will of this people? Searching for sociological answers to these political and legal problems associated with the recent resurgence of populism, Bauman, in the spirit of the classic distinction between community and society, described new forms of identity politics as communal responses to the process of societal globalisation. Communitarian identity politics confronts the void of meaning created by globalisation and constitutes specific globalised forms of affective tribalism labelled by Bauman as 'explosive communities'. These are disruptive and even violent responses to the growing social insecurity and instability caused by global social and political developments. The world is imagined as out of control and suffering from chaos and decline which can be reverted only by a radical action and reassertion of the commonly shared values and meaningful existence. Explosive communities are thus defensive mechanisms constituting the shared identity as a shield against what Bauman described as 'terrors of the global' and effects of 'negative globalisation'.

BOOK TALK MARCH 25, 2024
4:00 p.m, 509 O'Brian Hall

Paul Linden-Retek (School of Law) Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law (Oxford UP, 2023)

At a time when the integration of the European Union's peoples through the rule of law is faltering, this book develops a critical theory of postnational constitutionalism. Today, widely held conceptions of EU law continue to mislead citizens about the nature of political identity, sovereignty, and agency. They lose sight of a critical idea on which post-nationalism depends-that constitutional self-authorship is narrative, and the polity is a subject whose identity, history, and legacy are still in formation. Absent this vision, EU law reproduces crises of legitimacy: the depoliticization of public life; emergency rule by executive decree; a collapse of solidarity; and the rise of nativist movements. The book diagnoses this impasse as the product of a problem familiar to modernity: reification--a process in which social and historical relationships are misattributed as timeless relations among things.

Reification's shrinking of social dilemmas, moral principles, and political action to narrow perceptions of the present explains law's role in perpetuating crisis. But this diagnosis also points to a remedy. It suggests that to sustain the emancipatory potential of EU constitutionalism we must recover law's relationship to time. Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law proposes a temporally-attuned constitutional theory with principles of anti-reification, narrative interpretation, and non-sovereign agency at its centre. These principles reimagine essential domains of constitutional order: social integration, constitutional adjudication, and constituent power. Spanning various bodies of EU jurisprudence, the book devotes particular attention to migration and asylum--struggles where questions of solidarity, law, and belonging are most generative and acute.

Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law (Oxford UP, 2023) 

• Proposes a synthetic, critical theory of the structure and spirit of EU integration and constitutional order.
  Argues that refugee and migration law and policy have a particularly salient role to play in a revived and renewed narrative of EU integration.
• Constitutes an innovative, multidisciplinary work that incorporates a wide array of perspectives, such as Frankfurt School critical theory, critical legal studies, democratic and constitutional theory, postmodern ethical thought, comparative constitutional law, and EU legal doctrine and legal development.
• Revives EU law's emancipatory and transformative potential.