The return of the repressed: Constitutionalism, religion, and political pluralism

摘要

Michel Rosenfeld's book The Identity of the Constitutional Subject1 has the distinctive qualities of a delicate wine. It is intricate and multilayered, with additional hints of flavor and memory coming to the surface after the initial taste subsumes. This richness is also reflected in the intellectual sources upon which the book relies. Rosenfeld is as comfortable discussing the opinions of Justice Anthony Kennedy and Justice Antonin Scalia in Lawrence v. Texas,2 as he is drawing upon Hegel's Phenomenology or Freud's notion of displacement. The breadth and scope of Rosenfeld's undertaking in this book is impressive. His study investigates the dynamics of producing and (re) inventing the constitutional subject (we the people) while maintaining its coherence over time.3 The discussion then turns to explore whether the constitutional subject can now go global.