ABSTRACT
One response might be that Tully is entitled to different views on different topics, and that greater pessimism may well be justified in the case of imperialism than with constitutionalism. Tully would likely resist suggestions of discontinuity and regard this essay as elaborating the necessary linkages between constitutionalism and imperialism. Moreover, he concludes that pessimism here is but one part of the story, the other, untold for the moment, being the ‘pre-existing and continuing nonimperial forms of life’ which underlie western imperialism.7 I agree that the essay does not mark a wholly new direction, and that in some highly relevant ways it builds on Tully’s previous work. In particular, it develops a sometimes overlooked, but crucial, aspect of Strange Multiplicity which focuses on how dominant forms of constitutional (and imperial) knowledge have maintained hegemonic relations of power. But adverting to the constraining effects of epistemological frameworks creates an uneasy tension with Tully’s claim that constitutional discourse can also be a means of opening debate over, not just within, the rules – a tension which has led some to cast him as a constitutional enthusiast, others as a sceptic.8
