ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a critical reappraisal of two different models of global constitutionalism proposed by Jurgen Habermas that respond to Immanuel Kant's cosmopolitanism and seek to move beyond it. Habermas' own discursive theory of deliberative democracy, which allocates a central place to self-legislating subjects in culturally grounded communicative communities, can hereby function as a critical resource to challenge the democratic deficits in his global constitutionalism. An aspect of Kant's political cosmopolitanism is significant for the critique and revisions that Habermas suggests. The chapter argues that although Habermas' models absorb Kant's cosmopolitan intuitions and contribute important resources for critiquing resilient nationalist fictions and sovereigntist shortcomings, cultural relativism and arbitrary justice, they also risk fetishizing what he presupposes a priori to be universally consensual, rational and binding formal constitutional principles. Cosmopolitan translations and re-articulations can also challenge the content and scope of ‘basic human rights' in unpredictable ways.
