Abstract

In this paper I take issue with and argue against a certain subordination of the political to the legal that, I argue, is advanced under theories or ‘republican constitutionalism’ and undertake a defense of the political as ‘reflexive’. In republican constitutionalism one discerns an ‘imperialistic’ legal move to set the terms of political discourse, as political conflicts in order to be legally resolved are forced to meet criteria of legal relevance: in the process much that is vital to political action, its understanding and undertaking, is suppressed, elided or appropriated. I argue against the purported ‘containment’ of politics in law and for a ‘reflexivity’ that is constitutive of politics, re-introducing contingency and selfreference (‘what is political can only be a political question’) at the heart of what it means to act politically.