Author: Matheus Conde Pires

Abstract:

Liberal democracy has established itself as the contemporary paradigm, especially after the Second World War, in which the legal-political order is founded on the idea of popular sovereignty. However, a paradox can be identified between democracy and constitutionalism, in which the former embodies the idea of the people as sovereign, while the latter limits the political sphere. The term people thus emerges as a central category for the democratic foundation of the legal-political order. It is precisely from this point that this research develops, aiming to contribute to the understanding of the democratic foundation of legitimacy of the 1988 Constitution.

This interpretative research project combines theoretical problematization with a political-historical reinterpretation of the 1987–1988 Constituent Assembly. Through discursive analysis and a bibliographic review, it seeks to answer the following question: How did the dispute over the foundation of legitimacy of the “Citizen Constitution” unfold during the “conservative rebellion,” and how did this episode reconfigure the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism?

To address this question, the study is organized into two stages: (i) an empirical interpretative analysis of the speeches delivered during the “conservative rebellion,” between November 24, 1987, and January 5, 1988; and (ii) an essentially theoretical investigation, conducted in dialogue with the empirical findings, that reflects on the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism in light of the theoretical limitations inherent in the very concept of popular sovereignty.

The research adopts a post-structuralist perspective, drawing on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as its principal theoretical framework. Among its findings, the study identifies the discourses mobilized during the 1987–1988 Constituent Assembly, as well as the precarious and contingent foundations articulated as the basis of Brazil’s redemocratization process. It concludes that democracy and constitutionalism are inseparable because both rest upon inherently partial foundations. Constitutionalism is therefore understood as the institutional expression of the antagonistic rupture intrinsic to what is conceived as democracy. The relationship between the two concepts does not derive from immutable principles but rather from the impossibility of establishing a totalizing foundation for the political sphere.