The Transformative Potential of Constituent Power: A Revised Approach to the New Latin American Constitutionalism
The processes of constitutional change and resultant constitutional models initiated in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador since the late 1990s have been celebrated for offering a democratic form of constitutionalism. The new Latin American constitutionalism promises to resolve the democratic deficit in traditional constitutional theory by institutionalizing spaces for citizen-led constitutional change. However, events in which actors outside the state or without the wider support of the state have attempted to initiate similar processes of constitutional transformation suggest a problem with current theories. This is a residual bias toward state actors and a tendency to underestimate the power of extrainstitutional actors in these processes. By reconceiving the central concepts of “constituent power” and “constitutional process,” an account of the new Latin American constitutionalism is possible that both resolves remaining tensions in the literature and illustrates the relevance of this phenomenon to struggles across the continent.
