Constitutional identities in a liquid society

Constitutional identities in a liquid society

What is national identity? What is its relation with constitutional democracy? The post Westphalian principles of national sovereignty and state unity, Bauman argues, are challenged internally by regionalism and externally by cosmopolitanism. The dilemma is whether we can reconcile shifting patterns of geopolitical power and the irrational response to the rising precarite of human condition with existing state-centred constitutional structure. Habermas's response to this dilemma is a patriotic constitution, notably a set of procedural norms which he distils from a rational reading of the evolution of modern constitution making. Bauman dismisses constitutional patriotism. The concept of national identity is entangled with contemporary state-centred constitutional structure. In this article, I will critically assess Bauman's theory vis a vis the debate over the role of constitutional law in a deeply diversified society, and discuss one of the republican alternatives such as Tully's hypothesis of a multinational state. By revealing the limits of Bauman political analysis, my aim is to shift Bauman's sociological analysis on the debate over constitutional recognition of national identities.

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