Over the past few years, a series of political scandals have raised the ‘new constitutional question’. Multinational corporations violated human rights; private intermediaries in the internet threatened freedom of opinion, and recently, with particular impact, the global capital markets unleashed catastrophic risks — all of these pose constitutional problems in the strict sense. It is outside the limits of the nation-state in transnational politics and, at the same time, outside institutionalized politics, in the ‘private’ sectors of global society that these constitutional problems arise. The ... More

Over the past few years, a series of political scandals have raised the ‘new constitutional question’. Multinational corporations violated human rights; private intermediaries in the internet threatened freedom of opinion, and recently, with particular impact, the global capital markets unleashed catastrophic risks — all of these pose constitutional problems in the strict sense. It is outside the limits of the nation-state in transnational politics and, at the same time, outside institutionalized politics, in the ‘private’ sectors of global society that these constitutional problems arise. The crisis in traditional constitutionalism is caused by transnationalization and privatization. The main thesis of the book is: The obstinate state-and-politics-centricity of traditional constitutionalism needs to be counteracted by a sociological approach which, so far, has remained unheard in the constitutional debate. Constitutional sociology projects the constitutional question not only onto the relationship between politics and law, but also onto the whole society. It is particularly in the so-called private sectors of world society that constitutional conflicts are emerging. Constitutionalism has the potential to counteract the expansionist tendencies of social systems outside the state, particularly the globalized economy, science and technology, and the information media, when they endanger individual or institutional autonomy. The book identifies transnational regimes, particularly in the private area, as the new constitutional subjects in the global space which compete with the nation states. It analyses transnational societal constitutions in their functions, arenas, processes, and structures. It deals with the horizontal effects of constitutional rights in situations when transnational corporations violate human rights obligations. And it suggests solutions for collisions between different transnational regime constitutions.