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Full-Text Articles in Law

Modern Constitutional Democracy And Imperialism, James Tully Jul 2008

Modern Constitutional Democracy And Imperialism, James Tully

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

To what extent is the development of modern constitutional democracy as a state form in the West and its spread around the world implicated in western imperialism? This has been a leading question of legal scholarship over the last thirty years. James Tully draws on this scholarship to present a preliminary answer. Part I sets out seven central features of modern constitutional democracy and its corresponding international institutions of law and government. Part II sets out three major imperial roles that these legal and political institutions have played, and continue to play. And finally, Part III surveys ways in which …


The Constitutive Paradox Of Modern Law: A Comment On Tully, Ruth Buchanan Jul 2008

The Constitutive Paradox Of Modern Law: A Comment On Tully, Ruth Buchanan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This commentary draws out and elaborates upon some of the more challenging aspects of Professor Tully's sophisticated taxonomy of the relationship between modern constitutional forms and constituent powers. Tully's article reveals the historical particularities of these formations, and at the same time encourages the reader to think beyond them, towards the potentially uncategorizable realm of democratic constitutionalism. Yet, how is it possible to use a taxonomy of modern constitutional democracy as a means of understanding what ties in the uncharted territory beyond? This commentary further explores to what extent this paradoxical modern configuration of constituent powers and constitutional forms may …


"Other Worlds Are Actual": Tully On The Imperial Roles Of Modern Constitutional Democracy, Michael Simpson Jul 2008

"Other Worlds Are Actual": Tully On The Imperial Roles Of Modern Constitutional Democracy, Michael Simpson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The globalization of modern legal and economic practices has not ushered in a state of perpetual peace as Kantians have famously predicted. Rather, it has reinforced the perpetual crises and violence that is today's realm of the political. This article examines James Tully's claim that the formalization of diverse legal traditions into the modular confines of modern constitutions, as nation-states and international taw, is a project of today's imperial hegemony. The global imperialism of modern constitutionalism is one that suppresses the vast multiplicity of existing legal pluralities and, consequently, fuels war and aggression, not perpetual peace. Tully's important analysis of …