The Concept of Constitutionalization and the Multi-Corporate Enterprise in the 21st Century

The Concept of Constitutionalization and the Multi-Corporate Enterprise in the 21st Century—The Body Corporate From

Incarnation to Ensoulment to Ministry (But Whose?)

• Larry Catá Backer– W. Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar & Professor of Law, Professor of

International Affairs 2013-14, Pennsylvania State University. The author may be contacted at lcb911@gmail.com.

• International Seminar 19-20 June 2014• Constitutionalization of the World-Power System

– Organised by the Economy, Man and Society Research Department, Collège des Bernardins and the University of Paris Nanterre

– Collège des BERNARDINS, 18-20 Rue de Poissy 75005 Paris

Introduction• Considering concept of constitutionalism • Distinguish among three elements– Constitutions

• Incarnation; autonomy self referencing– Constitutionalism

• Ensoulment; 4 significant schools– (1) Global (2) Transnational (3) polycentric

constitutionalism, and (4) World Power System approach– Constitutionalization

• Ministry; common platform

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Thesis• Constitutionalism serves as – an amalgam of the desire or intent (understood as a

cultural instruction or preference) to invoke the frameworks of constitutionalism for the formation and interactions of bodies corporate

– provides a framework applicable to any organized group, from states to non-state actors, that seeks to govern themselves through an entity autonomous of other entities and of its constituent parts (the community of believers).

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Roadmap• Consider the way in which constitutionalization is

expressed through through its constituent elements – Incarnation (constitutional formation)– Ensoulment (constitutionalism)– Community and Ministry (constitutionalization)

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Constitutions• Where and what is bring formed? • An autonomous being? • a ghost within the state system?• The corporate body made flesh, but is it subject

only to its own desires and those of its stakeholders without limit?

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Constitutionalism• Ideology; eating the apple in Eden.• Sources and Oppositions– Global Constitutionalism

• International community– Transnational Constitutionalism

• The community of states– Polycentric constitutionalism

• Community of stakeholders– WPS

• The liberal constitutional traditions of the West

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Constitutionalization• Community– a drive toward universalism in the constitutionalist,

which is necessary for the triumph of the normative reality at the heart of each version of constitutionalism,• constitutionalization thus describes both the attempt to fit

all governance within constitutionalist ideals, but also to fit all constitutionalist ideals together into a coherent framework

• Ministry– “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by

faith only” (James 2:24)– Operationalization as manifestation of community

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Conclusion

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Conclusion• (1) it is the form of constitutions

that now serve as the basis for institutional formation, for their incarnation as a tangible expression of an abstraction

• (2) it is the normative structures of constitutionalism that provides the “soul” of those institutional forms, that serve as the basis of their autonomy from their creators and operators and that guide them between right and wrong,

• (3) it is constitutionalization that serves as the foundation for a common language of interaction among an increasingly diverse set of constitutional creatures, through the notion of community and ministry inherent in the concept of constitutionalism.

• (4) It is the constitutionalist system that in its operation is most compatible with the expectations customs of stakeholders that will succeed.

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