This book explores the democratic methods by which political communities make their basic law, and the dangers associated with constitution-making.

Andrew Arato is Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor in Political and Social Theory at The New School for Social Research, New York. He has held Fulbright, Humboldt, and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowships, and has lectured in France, Germany, Toronto, South Africa, Nepal, and Zimbabwe. He is the author of several books, most recently Post Sovereign Constitution Making: Learning and Legitimacy (2016).

Preface; Introduction: key concepts: legitimacy, sovereignty, revolution, constitution and sovereign dictatorship; Part I. On the History of the Idea of the Constituent Power: 1. The origins of the idea of the sovereign constituent power; 2. The antinomies of the framers in the first democratic revolutions; Part II. Post Sovereignty and the Return of Revolution: 3. The evolution of the post revolutionary paradigm: from Spain to South Africa; 4. The time of revolutions; Part III. Constitutional Change under Constitutional Regimes: 5. Post sovereign constitutionalism: likely and desirable outcomes; Epilogue: breaking the link between revolution and sovereign dictatorship the case of the all Russian constituent assembly, 1917-18.