ABSTRACT

The chapter is concerned with the genealogy, expansion and hegemony of the demo-liberal constitutional discourse, or more precisely its specific substantive and foundationalist version, which spread in the post-communist states of central and eastern Europe after the 1989 revolution. In the light of the analysis carried out, the genealogical traces lead back to the intellectual transformations associated with the elevation of the United States to the position of global hegemon. Initially, peripheral and postcolonial American discourse made bold claims to universality and considered itself the only legitimate heir to Enlightenment theorists, especially in the areas of constitutionalism and democracy. Further genealogical tropes lead to the origins of modern liberalism and its links from Christian theology to ancient Platonic ideology.