Constituent Power in Early Modern Political Philosophy

Filippo del Lucchese has written a gem of a book in which he shows how early formulations of the concept of constituent power can be found already in the work of early modern thinkers such as Campanella, Lipsius and Bodin, and, moreover, why this inquiry is essential for understanding the modern foundations of political and constitutional authority. -- Marco Goldoni, University of Glasgow
Filippo Del Lucchese’s Constituent Power in Early Modern Political Philosophy: From La Boétie to Hobbes offers a powerful and highly original account of the emergence of the concept of constituent power from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. He shows that constituent power cannot be understood as a formal system that underlies the political order but precisely the principle that renders such a system impossible. Constituent power signifies the constant innovation and maneuver required to re-constitute the constituted order. Del Lucchese allows us to see that the very notion of the consent, voluntarily given, of individuals to their own subjection arose as a weapon wielded by the sovereign power against the multitude. His reflections on a single century of political thought illuminates some of the most urgent problems of our political present. -- Warren Montag, Occidental College