ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the disentanglement of sovereignty and people through the cases of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and the Taiwan Sunflower Movement. The idea of sovereignty, though fictional, has always been coupled with nations or people. The term underlies the expressive function of a self-ruling polity, which exercises monopolized power over its subjects on an exclusive territory. Hong Kong provides a prominent case of the disentanglement of sovereignty and the people. Taiwan Sunflower Movement in turn revealed the uncomfortable truth of "sovereignty without people", which can be described as "unpopular sovereignty". Sovereignty is a two-way street. It certainly shapes the constitutional identity of the people. However, it also depends on how people rule themselves, with fundamental documents agreed upon by the citizenry. Constitutionalism does not merely mean the formality of separation of powers and the establishment of rule of law. A constitution is the product of identity formation growing out of political self-consciousness.
