ABSTRACT
The debate on constitutionalism in the global realm is intrinsically linked to the emergence of dense forms of legally framed social ordering beyond the state. However, this phenomenon is by no means new. Europe's global expansion from the fifteenth century onwards implied, from the very outset, the emergence of extensive forms of transnational ordering in the colonial form. Modern statehood has, therefore, never been the sole form of social ordering in the emerging world society in that modern states have always been embedded in, and interacted with, extensive forms of ordering located beyond the state. Thus, the relationship between statehood and transnational ordering is not a zero-sum relationship. On the contrary, both modern statehood, understood as a limited form of social ordering, and transnational ordering emerged hand in hand. The implosion of Europe's global hegemony which started to unfold in the late nineteenth century furthermore implied a structural double movement characterised by a progressive globalisation of modern statehood and a simultaneous expansion of transnational ordering which implied a gradual reduction in the reliance on the centre/periphery differentiation and a move towards an increased reliance on functional differentiation within the transnational layer of world society.
