ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches out three secular trends which subvert state-centred constitutional thought and make societal constitutionalism at a global level empirically and normatively plausible. These trends are: Dilemma of Rationalisation, Polycentric Globalisation, and Creeping Constitutionalisation. The political constitution of the nation-state serves as the great historical model for civil constitutions, as a stock of historical experience, of procedures, terms, principles, and norms is available as an analogy for the present situation. In addition to the quality of the legal norm and to its structural coupling with a social system and a specific autological relationship, a hierarchialisation between norms of 'higher' constitutional quality and norms of 'lower' quality of ordinary law must exist. Judicial review of standard business contracts, of private standards of due diligence, of standardisation by private associations, of arbitration court decisions in both the national and the international sphere, are examples of a de facto constitutional review of non-legislative law.
