Présentation de l'éditeur

This book offers an outline of the foundations of a theory of constitutional semiotics. It provides a systematic account of the concept of constitutional semiotics and its role in the representation and signification of meaning in constitution, constitutional law, and constitutionalism. The book explores the constitutional signification of meaning that is stretched between rational entrenchment and constitutional imagination. It provides a critical assessment of the rationalist entrapment of constitutional modernity and justifies the need to turn to 'shadow constitutionalisms': textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism.

The book puts forward innovative incentives for constitutional analysis based on constitutional semiotics as a paradigm for representation of meaning in rational, textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism. The book focuses on the textual, imaginative, and visual discourse of constitutionalism, which is built upon collective constitutional imaginaries and on the peculiar normativity of constitutional geometry and constitutional mythology as borderline phenomena entrenched in rational, textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism.

The book analyses concepts such as: constitutional text and texture, authoritative constitutional narratives and authoritative constitutional narrators, constitutional semiotic community, constitutional utopia, constitutional taboo, normative ideology and normative ideas, constitutional myth and mythology, constitutional symbolism, constitutional code and constitutional geometric form. It explores the textual entrenchment of constitutionalism and its repercussions for representation and signification of meaning.

Sommaire

PART I. THE CONSTITUTIONAL SIGNIFICATION OF MEANING: BETWEEN RATIONAL ENTRENCHMENT, SIGNIFICATION POTENTIAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL IMAGINATION

1. Constitutional Semiotics as a System of Theories and Meta-theories

2. Quantum Constitutionalism as a Trigger of Paradigmatic Turn and the Role of Constitutional Semiotics for its Proper Understanding

3. The Rationalist Entrapment of Constitutional Modernity

4. The Concept of Rational Constitutionalism and the Need to Turn to 'Shadow Constitutionalisms' on the Basis of the Semiotic Approach

5. The Structure of Constitutional Semiotics: Signifiers, Signifieds and the Signification of Constitutional and Constitutionally Relevant Meaning

PART II. TEXTUAL CONSTITUTIONALISM AND ITS ROLE IN CONSTITUTIONAL SEMIOTICS

1. The Concept of Textual Constitutionalism

2. Constitutional Communication Perceived through the Semiotic Perspective of Textual Constitutionalism

3. The Constitution as a Discursive Semiotic Project: Constitutional Narratives, Constitutional Narrators and the Constitutional Semiotic Community

4. Constitutional Text and Constitutional Texture from a Semiotic Perspective: The Role of Open Texture for Constitutional Semiotics

5. The Concept of Authoritative Constitutional Text and its Functions for Constitutional Semiotics

PART III. SYMBOLIC-IMAGINARY CONSTITUTIONALISM

1. The Concept of Symbolic-Imaginary Constitutionalism

2. Constitutional Semiosis via Symbolic-Imaginary Constitutionalism at the Crossroads between the Collective Conscious, Subconscious and Unconscious

3. Constitutional Semiotic Landscapes: The Teleology and Functionality of Symbolic-Imaginary Constitutionalism as a 'Game of Constitutional Semiotic Imaginaries'

4. Constitutional Codes

5. Normative Ideologies and Ideas

6. Constitutional Myths and Mythologies

7. Constitutional Utopias

PART IV. VISUAL CONSTITUTIONALISM

1. Visual Constitutionalism as a Post-modern Semiotic Concept

2. Official Visual Constitutional Semiotics: The Constitutional Embeddedness and Constitutional Relevance of Official Public Visuals

3. Visual Constitutionalism and Digital Constitutional Semiotics: 'Iconisation', 'Emojification' and 'Memefication' as Forms
of the Signification of Constitutionally Relevant Meaning

4. Visual Constitutionalism as a Proper Form of Constitutionalism Embedded in Semiotic and Socio-legal Approaches

5. Visual Constitutionalism in Pop Culture and Pop Art

6. Visual Constitutionalism in Architecture

PART V. CONSTITUTIONAL GEOMETRY AND CONSTITUTIONAL ALGEBRA AS SEMIOTIC PARADIGMS FOR ORDERING AND EXPLAINING THE CONSTITUTION, CONSTITUTIONALISM AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

1. Ordering and Explaining Constitutional Order through Mathematic Metaphors: An Introduction to the Semiotic Theory of Constitutional Geometry and Constitutional Algebra

2.Inspiration, Imagination and Signification through Rationalisation: The Concept of Constitutional Algebra

3. The Concept of Constitutional Geometry: Imagining, Signifying, Understanding and Ordering the Constitutional Order through Geometric Metaphors

4. The Semiotic Role of Structured Constitutional Imaginaries

5. Constitutional Geometry as an Explanatory and Ordering Paradigm of Constitutionalism

6. Theoretical Constitutional Geometry

7. Imaginative Constitutional Geometry and the Concept of Cloud Constitutionalism

8. Westphalian, Post-Westphalian and Neo-Westphalian Constitutional Geometry

Présentation de l'éditeur

The way that Americans understand their Constitution and wider legal tradition has been dominated in recent decades by two exhausted approaches: the originalism of conservatives and the “living constitutionalism” of progressives. Is it time to look for an alternative?

Adrian Vermeule argues that the alternative has been there, buried in the American legal tradition, all along. He shows that US law was, from the founding, subsumed within the broad framework of the classical legal tradition, which conceives law as “a reasoned ordering to the common good.” In this view, law’s purpose is to promote the goods a flourishing political community requires: justice, peace, prosperity, and morality. He shows how this legacy has been lost, despite still being implicit within American public law, and convincingly argues for its recovery in the form of “common good constitutionalism.”

This erudite and brilliantly original book is a vital intervention in America’s most significant contemporary legal debate while also being an enduring account of the true nature of law that will resonate for decades with scholars and students.

Adrian Vermeule is Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.

 Sommaire

INTRODUCTION: THE RETURN OF THE CLASSICAL LEGAL TRADITION

I. THE COMMON GOOD DEFINED

II. THE CLASSICAL LEGAL TRADITION IN AMERICA

III. ORIGINALISM AS ILLUSION

IV. PROGRESSIVE CONSTITUTIONALISM AND DEVELOPING CONSTITUTIONALISM

V. APPLICATIONS

CONCLUSION

Présentation de l'éditeur

La diversité des approches qui caractérise la discipline conduit cet ouvrage à présenter « des » sociologies du droit, envisagées de manière plurielle. Les œuvres classiques et contemporaines sont ici exposées non de manière historique ou par regroupements derrière des courants mais de façon dynamique, à travers huit tensions qui caractérisent le discours juridique contemporain. La sociologie du droit, science originale ou déclinaison de la théorie ou de la philosophie du droit ? L'établissement juridique des faits, reflet ou construction d'une vérité ? L'interprétation du droit, découverte ou création du sens ? Le droit, liberté ou contrainte ? L'ordre juridique, unité ou pluralité ? Le droit comme vecteur d'une solidarité sociale : communauté ou société ? Formalisation ou déformalisation du droit ? Légalité ou légitimité ? L'ouvrage articule ainsi présentation d'outils théoriques d'analyse et approche empirique, en renvoyant à des enjeux juridiques contemporains divers tels que la non-discrimination et la question du genre, les crimes internationaux et leur répression, les droits sociaux et environnementaux, la liberté d'expression... Il tire aussi son originalité de l'utilisation d'illustrations issues de la culture populaire (cinéma, séries, littérature...), non seulement à des fins didactiques mais aussi afin d'en montrer l'influence dans le champ juridique.

Olivier Corten est professeur ordinaire à l'Université libre de Bruxelles, où il enseigne la sociologie du droit, la méthodologie et le droit international.

Présentation de l'éditeur

De l’affaire Tapie à celle des frégates de Taïwan, l’arbitrage n’a pas toujours eu bonne presse. La refondation de l’arbitrage est pourtant possible à partir des fondamentaux du droit public.

Généralement considéré comme une « justice privée », l’arbitrage est interdit, par principe, aux personnes morales de droit public. D’ailleurs, la sentence arbitrale n’est pas rendue « au nom du peuple français ». Cependant, l’arbitrage a une incidence sur l’emploi de l’argent public au sens de l’article 14 de la Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789, à laquelle renvoie le préambule de la Constitution de la Vème République.

Instituer un droit public de l’arbitrage ne signifie pas s’opposer au droit privé de l’arbitrage, mais instaurer un dialogue des droits dans ce qui est souvent conçu comme un « domaine réservé ». Il s’agit, par là même, de concilier des intérêts publics multiples, parfois conflictuels : du commerce international aux finances publiques, de l’échelle locale aux intérêts nationaux, de la dimension internationale aux biens publics globaux.

Le présent ouvrage met en avant des solutions pratiques pour les parties ayant recours à l’arbitrage, dans le but de résoudre leurs différends. Sans oublier l’intérêt qu’il y aurait pour des tiers à contester une sentence arbitrale.

La justice, le législateur, l’exécutif et tout citoyen attentif à la chose publique - du justiciable au contribuable - pourront y trouver matière à réflexion, moyens d’intervention et intérêt à agir.