Expressive Constitutionalism

We argue that the standard Constitutional Political Economy defence of constitutionalism, that derives from an argument relating to the shift from narrowly self-interested motivations in the in-period context to relatively general-interest decision making in the constitutional context, is flawed precisely because it is intended to relate to essentially political settings where decision making must be construed as collective in nature. We suggest an alternate account of expressive constitutionalism that points to a specific defence of constitutional conventions that are insulated from popular voting.