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Occupy The System! Societal Constitutionalism And Transnational Corporate Accounting, Moritz Renner
Occupy The System! Societal Constitutionalism And Transnational Corporate Accounting, Moritz Renner
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies
Today's most pressing constitutional question is posed by a global economic system whose expansive tendencies seem no longer controllable. In addressing this question, the theory of Societal Constitutionalism apparently shifts established ideological coordinates by developing a theory of the self-constitutionalization of social spheres. It seeks to combine the virtues of grassroots democracy with the sophistication of systemic social theory. Thus, its normative claim can be formulated as an oxymoron: "Occupy the System!" The claim is an oxymoron because it points to the apparent impossibility of critical social theory in a functionally differentiated society: How can a functional system such as …
Social Movements As Constituent Power: The Italian Struggle For The Commons, Saki Bailey, Ugo Mattei
Social Movements As Constituent Power: The Italian Struggle For The Commons, Saki Bailey, Ugo Mattei
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies
The Italian commons (beni comuni) movement is a powerful example of the way in which social movements are emerging as the new pouvoir constituant serving not only to enforce the protections and guarantees of national constitutions but also, in the context of the declining power of the nation-state, as a counter hegemonic force against the neoliberal economic constitutionalism of the international economic institutions. The common goods social movement in Italy was born out of the concerted action of a number of civil society groups combatting neoliberal privatizations. This commons movement, as will be argued in this paper, is an instance …