A general theory of constitutional patriotism

International Journal of Constitutional Law

Volumn 6, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 72-95

  Müller, Jan Werner ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 39049128979     PISSN: 14742640     EISSN: 14742659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/icon/mom037     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (79)

1. Compare SANFORD LEVINSON, CONSTITUTIONAL FAITH (Princeton Univ. Press 1988).
2. Representative Barbara Jordan (Democrat-Texas), A President Is Impeachable If He Attempts to Subvert the Constitution, Speech before the House Judiciary Committee (Jul. 25, 1974), available at http://watergate.info/impeachment/74-07-25_barbara-jordan.shtml (last visited Nov. 8, 2007).
3. Patchen Markell, Making Affect Safe for Democracy? On "Constitutional Patriotism," 28 POL. THEORY 38 (2000).
4. DAVID MILLER, ON NATIONALITY (Oxford Univ. Press 1995).
5. Compare Andrew Oldenquist, Loyalties, 79 J. PHIL. 173 (1980).
6. Andrew Oldenquist, Three Kinds of Nationalism, 1 CROATIAN J. PHIL. 63, 68.
7. Kwame Anthony Appiah, THE ETHICS OF IDENTITY 2 2 0 (Princeton Univ. Press 2005)
8. and Andrea Baumeister, Diversity and Unity: The Problem with 'Constitutional Patriotism,' 6 EUR. J.POL. THEORY 483 (2007).
9. Critical theorists, of course, would not accept his distinction.
10. Oldenquist, supra note 6, at 68.
11. See, e.g., CHAIM GANS, THE LIMITS OF NATIONALISM (Cambridge Univ. Press 2003).
12. JÜRGEN HABERMAS, BETWEEN FACTS AND NORMS 500 (MIT Press 1998).
13. For the idea of normative dependence, see RAINER FORST, TOLERANZ IM KONFLIKT: GESCHICHTE, GEHALT UND GEGENWART LINES UMSTRITTENEN BEGRIFFS [TOLERANCE IN CONFLICT: THE HISTORY, CONTENT AND PRESENT MEANING OF A CONTROVERSIAL CONCEPT] 48-52 (Suhrkamp 2003). I am much indebted to discussions with Rainer Forst on this point.
14. See, e.g., Omid Payrow Shabani, Constitutional Patriotism as a Model of Postnational Political Association: The Case of the EU, 32 PHIL. & SOC. CRIT. 699 (2006).
15. See ALASDAIR MACINTYRE, IS PATRIOTISMA VIRTUE 15 (Univ. Press ofKansas 1984) (remarking that patriotism "turns out to be a permanent source ofmoral danger")
16. or George Kateb, Is Patriotism a Mistake?, 67 SOC. RES. 901 (contending that "patriotism is inherently disposed to disregard morality").
17. Joxerramon Bengoetxea & Juan Ignacio Ugartemendia, Civil Disobedience as Constitutional Patriotism, 17 LEGAL STUD. 434 (1997).
18. Cf. THE MIGRATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL IDEAS (Sujit Choudhry ed., Cambridge Univ. Press 2007).
19. Frank Michelman, Morality, Identity and "Constitutional Patriotism " 14 RATIO JURIS 253 (2001).
20. Id. at 261.
21. Frank I. Michelman, Family Quarrel, in HABERMAS ON LAW AND DEMOCRACY: CRITICAL EXCHANGES 320 (Michel Rosenfeld & Andrew Arato eds., Univ. Calif. Press 1998).
22. James Tully, The Unfreedom of the Moderns in Relation to the Ideals of Constitutional Dernocracy, 65 MOD. L. REV. 2004 (2002).
23. HEINZ KLUG, CONSTITUTING DEMOCRACY: LAW, GLOBALISM, AND SOUTH AFRICA'S POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION (Cambridge Univ. Press 2000).
24. See, e.g., George P. Fletcher, Constitutional Identity, 14 CARDOZO L. REV. 737 (1993).
25. For a somewhat different conception of "constitutional culture," See PETER HÄBERLE, VERFASSUNGSLEHRE ALS KULTURWISSENSCHAFT [CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY AS CULTURAL RESEARCH] (Duncker & Humblot 1982).
26. See also Mark Tushnet, Forms of Judicial Review as Expressions of Constitutional Patriotism, 22 LAW & PHIL. 353 (2003).
27. See Craig Calhoun, Imagining Solidarity: Cosmopolitanism, Constitittional Patriotism, and the Public Sphere, 14 PUB. CULTURE 147 (2002).
28. "The notion of constitution as legal framework... needs to be complemented by the notion of constitution as the creation of concrete social relationships: Of bonds of mutual commitment forged in shared action, of institutions, and of shared modalities of practical action." Id. at 152.
29. Contrary to persistent caricatures of his position, Habermas has always stressed precisely this point, not least with regard to a constitutional patriotism for the EU. See, e.g., JÜRGEN HABERMAS, BETWEEN FACTS AND NORMS 500 (MIT Press 1998).
30. JÜRGEN HABERMAS, THE POSTNATIONAL CONSTELLATION 74 (Max Pensky trans., Polity 2001).
31. The idea of translation is closer to Habermas's recent thoughts on the role of religious experience in the constitutional state. Jürgen Habermas, Religion in the Public Sphere, 14 EUR. J. PHIL. 1 (2006)
32. Many constitutional lawyers broadly following the lead of Carl Schmitt still cling to this ideal. For an overview of this tradition, See JAN-WERNER MÜLLER, A DANGEROUS MIND: CARL SCHMITT IN POST-WAR EUROPEAN THOUGHT (Yale Univ. Press 2003).
33. See, e.g., Albert O. Hirschman, Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Society, 22 POL. THEORY 203 (1994).
34. Note, however, that this stress on conflict does not effectively counter two other possible objections: That constitutionalism inevitably carries a statist legacy and the reproach of "constitutional fetishism," according to which a focus on constitutionalism is misplaced, since many ways to exercise power escape a constitutionalist framework. See Neil Walker, The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism, 65 MOD. L. REV. 317 (2002).
35. Jürgen Habermas, Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State, in MULTICULTURALISM 107, 135 (Amy Gutman ed., Princeton Univ. Press 1994).
36. HABERMAS, supra note 26, at 489 [emphasis added].
37. See, in particular, Thomas McCarthy, Legitimacy and Diversity: Dialectical Reflections on Analytical Distinctions, in HABERMAS ON LAW AND DEMOCRACY 115, supra note 19
38. and Richard Bernstein, The Retrieval of the Democratic Ethos, in HABERMAS ON LAW AND DEMOCRACY 287.
39. See McCarthy, supra note 33.
40. Id. 3 at 131.
41. Id. at 139.
42. See Jürgen Habermas, Constitutional Democracy: A Paradoxical Union of Contradictory Principles?, 29 POL. THEORY 775 (2001).
43. As Habermas put it, "[T]he interpretation of constitutional history as a learning process is predicated on the nontrivial assumption that later generations will start with the same standards as did the founders.... All participants must be able to recognize the project as the same throughout history and judge it from the same perspective." See also Günter Frankenberg, Der lernende Souverän [The Learning Sovereign], 35 KRITISCHE JUSTIZ 297 (2002).
44. See also Ciaran Cronin, On the Possibility of a Democratic Constitutional Founding: Habermas and Michelman in Dialogue, 19 RATIO JURIS 343 (2006).
45. For an argument that demonstrates the persistence of "ethnic cores" within liberal nationalism, see Arash Abizadeh, Liberal Nationalist versus Postnational Social Integration: On the Nation's Ethnocultural Particularity and 'Concreteness,' 10 NATIONS & NATIONALISM 231 (2004).
46. Pauline Kleingeld, Kantian Patriotism, 29 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 313 (2000).
47. Especially as pride generally is unrelated to agency. It does not possess what has been called "action tendencies." See JON ELSTER, ALCHEMIES OF THE MIND: RATIONALITY AND THE EMOTIONS 283 (Cambridge Univ. Press 1999).
48. Passions are not the same as emotions, which, in turn, are not the same as moods. As Philip Fisher has shown in a brilliambook, the modern vocabulary of the emotions is directly opposed to that of the "vehement passions" as almost inherently antisocial. Yet, one of the most interesting dynamics among the passions is one passion "blocking another." And it is perfectly plausible that an account of constitutional patriotism would include a notion of shame, or even anger, blocking other undesirable passions such as fear. See PHILIP FISHER, THE VEHEMENT PASSIONS (Princeton Univ. Press 2002).
49. ELSTER, supra note 41, at 249-250.
50. Cronin, supra note 38, at 19.
51. Jürgen Habermas, Why Europe Needs a Constitution, NEW LEFT REV., Sept.-Oct. 2001, at 5, 16.
52. GEORGE P. FLETCHER, LOYALTY: AN ESSAY ON THE MORALITY OF RELATIONSHIPS (Oxford Univ. Press 1993). See also Oldenquist, supra note 5, at 71.
53. Not everyone sees it this way, of course, and some would argue that loyalty to persons only is, in fact, a sign of being premodern. Witness, for instance, Michael Oakeshott's observation that in a premodern "morality of communal ties... loyalties are not to chosen moral principles but to persons." MICHAEL OAKESHOTT, MORALITY AND POLITICS IN MODERN EUROPE: THE HARVARD LECTURES (Shirley Robin Letwin ed., Yale Univ. Press 1993).
54. FLETCHER, supra note 46, at 63.
55. But See CARL SCHMITT, VERFASSUNGSLEHRE [CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY] (8th ed., Duncker & Humblot 1989) (1928) (theorizing the idea of Verfassungsverrat [constitutional treason]).
56. FLETCHER, supra note 46, at 64.
57. JOSEPH RAZ, VALUE, RESPECT AND ATTACHMENT 16 (Cambridge Univ. Press 2001).
58. Id. at 20.
59. On the normative peculiarity of the state, compare Mathias Risse, What to Say about the State, 32 Soc. THEORY & PRAC. 671 (2006).
60. Frank I. Michelman, Integrity-Anxiety?, in AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS 241 (Michael Ignatieff ed., Princeton Univ. Press 2005).
61. See JEREMY RABKIN, DEMOCRACY WITHOUT NATIONS? (Princeton Univ. Press 2005).
62. See also Thomas Nagel, The Problem of Global Justice, 33 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 113 (2005).
63. Compare Bernard Yack, The Myth of the Civic Nation, 10 CRIT. REV. 193 (1996).
64. ROGERS BRUBAKER, ETHNICITY WITHOUT GROUPS 5 (Harvard Univ. Press 2004).
65. Dora Kostakopoulou, Thick, Thin and Thinner Patriotisms: Is This All There Is?, 26 OXFORD J. LEGAL STUD. 73 (2006).
66. Dieter Grimm, Integration by Constitution, 3 INT'L J. CONST. L. (I•CON) 196 (2005).
67. Think of the de facto creation of the Conseil fran_eccais du culte musulman by the French state and the series of Islamkonferenzen initiated by the German Interior Ministry. One might object that these are rather desperate attempts to address the challenges of cultural diversity with the tools of old-style European corporatism. However, the reaction from within the French and German Muslim communities has been far too favorable simply to dismiss these efforts as crude state attempts at forcing society to be legible. For subtle discussions of French republicanism's multiple, contested, but also often hard-to-detect adaptations, see OLIVIER ROY, LA LAÏCITÉ FACE À L'ISLAM [SECULARISM CONFRONTS ISLAM] (Stock 2005)
68. PATRICK WEIL, LA RÉPUBLIQUE ET SA DIVERSITÉ [THE REPUBLIC AND ITS DIVERSITY] (Seuil 2005)
69. LES CODES DE LA DIFFERENCE [THE CODES OF DIFFERENCE] (Riva Kastoryano ed., Sciences Po 2005)
70. and Cécile Laborde, Secular Philosophy and Muslim Headscarves in Schools, 13 J. POL. PHIL. 305 (2005).
71. For the quasi-official justification of the German Islamkonferenzen, see Wolfgang Schäuble, Muslime in Deutschland [Muslims in Germany], FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, Sept. 25, 2006.
72. For the German variant of liberal nationalism in the form of the idea of a Leitkultur ("guiding culture"), see Bassam Tibi, Leitkultur als Wertekonsens-Bilanz einer missglückten deutschen Debatte [Guiding Culture as a Consensus on Values - Summing Up a Failed German Debate], AUS POLITIK UND ZEITGESCHICHTE, Dec. 1, 2001, at 23.
73. BRUBAKER, supra note 57, at 116-131.
74. CHRISTIAN JOPPKE, SELECTING BY ORIGIN: ETHNIC MIGRATION IN THE LIBERAL STATE (Harvard Univ. Press 2005).
75. There is some empirical evidence that, in today's Europe, the members of majority cultures are not so much intolerant of Muslim ways of life as they are concerned about political loyalty to the country. What kinds of "loyalty tests" if any are legitimate is a question that is beyond the scope of this article. Compare PAUL M. SNIDERMAN & LOUK HAGENDOORN, WHEN WAYS OF LIFE COLLIDE: MULTICULTURALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS IN THE NETHERLANDS (Princeton Univ. Press 2007).
76. For the perhaps less obvious example of the Danish case as one of universalism imbued with national and religious particularism, see Per Mouritsen, The Particular Universalism of a Nordic Civic Nation: Common Values, State Religion and Islam in Danish Political Culture, in MULTICULTURALISM, MUSLIMS AND CITIZENSHIP: A EUROPEAN APPROACH 72 (Tariq Modood et al. eds., Routledge 2006).
77. James Q. Whitman, The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty, 113 YALE L. J. 1151 (2004).
78. Türk Ceza Kanunu, art. 301 (Turk.), available at http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/kanunlar/k5237.html.
79. Jean-MARC FERRY, LA QUESTION DE L'ÉTAT EUROPÉEN [THE QUESTION OF THE EUROPEAN STATE] (Gallimard 2000).