ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to constitutional imaginaries of representation. It analyzes the historical and conceptual trajectory of constitutional imaginaries in the course of contemporary constitutionalism. It explores the process of use and misuse of imaginaries of representation as part of the ‘constitutional make-believe’. The imaginaries of representation are explained as mixed rational-emotional narratives and symbolic proxies to constitutional insights. They are embedded in representative democracy, which is explored here as a phenomenon that is stretched between history of ideas, normativity of patterns of socio-legal behavior, and the imaginary heritage of constitutional modernity. The chapter outlines the key imaginaries of representative democracy in constitutional modernity. It discusses their general features and the place of the imaginaries of democratic representation in the overall scheme of constitutional imaginaries. The chapter also offers analysis of the imaginaries of representation beyond representative democracy. More precisely, it explores populist, elitist, and technocratic imaginaries of representation. Thus, the non-democratic imaginaries of representation are analyzed in the context of constitutional polycrisis and constitutional polytransition.
