ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between law and power through an engagement with the work of Nicholas Onuf. Constitutionalism is most often associated with law, or rather the rule of law. It is power that makes law and institutions possible, and it is power that provides the origin of a constitution at its moment of founding. The power of the people, the coming together of individuals who formally agree to reorganize themselves and consciously live under the rule of law, can be found in multiple domestic settings. In the 1974 analysis of global law making, Onuf suggests that there are three sources of a legal order: a social contract, consensus, or social imperative. Power finds its way into Onuf’s account of constitutions, but largely in the form of separation and balance rather than enablement and creation.
