Hannah Arendt's and Leo Strauss's Retrospects on Constitution. Dissent and Beyond

Abstract

 The declined project of drafting a European constitution has apart from its oft observed shortcomings also a set of noteworthy merits. It no longer allows the escalating unease of European constituents towards the further amplification of the project of constructing European polity and citizenry to be ignored, placing a bold question mark on the assumptions that have been made regarding the gradual withering away of the state and parochialism of politics. Due to the rejection of the draft, furthermore, a whole range of clashing visions of Europe's past and future have forced their way out of long oblivion, stimulating heated public debates on the ideas and practices of Europeanness. Also, although not raising as wide a polemic, the veto to the constitution gives us an occasion to reflect on the very idea and concept of constitution. It has given us a uniquely actual occasion to examine the question: what constitutes a constitution. Although history is hardly a dimension that the drafters wanted to make their way into the Treaty, the following reflections will nonetheless glance into the past. Without doubting the novelty of the challenges that today's Europe is facing or entertaining any hope (or fear) that these could even begin to be met by the means of ideas mainly, the following inquiry rather dwells on the interplay between ideas, experiences and histories on the arena of conceptualizing constitutions