Reconsidering Constitutional Formation I National Sovereignty A Comparative Analysis of the Juridification by Constitution 1st Edition Ulrike Müßig (Eds.)

Legal studies and consequently legal history focus on constitutional documents, believing in a nominalist autonomy of constitutional semantics. Reconsidering Constitutional Formation in the late 18^th and 19^th century, kept historic constitutions from being simply log-books for political experts through a functional approach to the interdependencies between constitution and public discourse. Sovereignty had to be ‘believed’ by the subjects and the political élites. Such a communicative orientation of constitutional processes became palpable in the ‘religious’ affinities of the constitutional preambles. They were held as ‘creeds’ of a new order, not only due to their occasional recourse to divine authority, but rather due to the claim for eternal validity contexts of constitutional guarantees.