ABSTRACT
This chapter and the following two explore the consequences of the emergence of novel forms of law and politics, due to the dual move towards a globalisation of statehood and the re-configuration of transnational structures away from their reliance on the centre/periphery differentiation and towards a reliance on functional differentiation, for the evolution and sustainability of constitutional ordering. The overall question pursued is to what extent constitutions can continue to serve as the frameworks for the normative stabilisation of social processes when the altered structural conditions are accounted for, and, in connection with this, how the constitutional concept can be re-worked in order to correspond better to the current structural realities of world society. Thus, the three chapters respectively deal with why a specific modern concept of constitutions has emerged, how constitutional frameworks have been transposed into new sites and what a constitution actually is, with the last referring to the meaning and implications of the constitutional concept.
