The Constituent Power of the People in the Age of Revolutions

Abstract

When Kant (1798: 95ff) reflected on the significance of the French Revolution, he argued that it lay in the sympathy it created among those observing it. This sympathy, close to enthusiasm, came from a revolution that demonstrated that political freedom i s possible. The revolution is a sign of future politics (Foucault 1983a: 93ff). The revolution will inspire others to seize the opportunity it has opened: to begin again when the conditions are right. Kant (1798: 95ff) argued that the importance of this sign is not diminished by the revolution going astray; even though that shows that it is not desirable to begin again in the same way. To begin and begin again, although not in the same way, is in many ways the leitmotif of modern reflections about the constituent power of the people. Sieyès (1789: 133) had, ten years before Kant’s reflections, claimed that although human beings dread to begin again because of all previous failures, it is better to do so than ‘having to remain at the mercy of events’.