In six sections, the volume deals with different questions of political philosophy. The first section focuses on democratic theories, the second on conceptual debates, discussing topics such as collective rights, the terrorist phenomenon, Libertarianism and conceptions of freedom.
In a third section on contemporary debates, perspectives on sovereignity and legitimacy as well as discourse theory versus political liberalism are discussed.

The volume also features essays on democracy and law, and in a section entitled “Judicial construction of democracy” papers on constitutional reviews by judges in the Netherlands as well as the construction of democracy in the context of Latin-American democracies.
Finally, in the last section the volume deals with the European Constitutional Treatise, analysing the arguments and examining the legitimacy crisis and the main objections displayed against this treatise.

Contents

I. On Democratic theory / Teoría de la democracia:
Eerik Lagerspetz: The Problem of the Common Good in Democratic Theory
Sergiy Maksymov: The Kantian Project of the Law Governed Society and New Democracies

II. Conceptual debates / Debates conceptuales:
Martin Blanchard: Recognition and the Case of Indigenous Reparations: A Habermasian Critique of Habermas
Bronik Matwijkiw: The failed Model of Terrorism
Susumu Morimura: The Libertarian View of Human Nature
Jonathan E. Soeharno: Freedom as Second Nature. Exploring the value of Hegel’s concept of Autonomous Personality for Global institutional theory
Hashimoto Tsutomu: On the Concept of Positive and Negative Liberty

III. Contemporary debates / Debates contemporáneos:
Terhi Kiiskinen: Sovereignty Revisited: On Inalienable Constitutional Power
Luiz B. Leite Araujo: A Decade of Debate: Discourse Theory versus Political Liberalism

IV. Democracy and law / Democracia y derecho:
Kenneth E. Himma: Does it really mather whether a Judicial Decision is morally Legitimate? The practical implications of Judicial Illegitimacy in a otherwise Legitimate State
Carl Lebeck: Commitments, Rules and the limits of Constitutionalism
Oliver W. Lembcke: Exception Rules? Freedom and the Order in a State of Exception
Bart van Klink: Does Necessity knows no Laws? Application of Law in a State of Exception
Costanza Margiotta: Ideas and Values of the “Legal” State
Jiri Priban: Constitution-Making. Morality and Legal Symbolism: on Identity, Temporality and Differentiation of the legal, political and moral Systems

V. Judicial construction of democracy / Construcción judicial de la democracia:
Maurice Adams: Judging the Constitution: the Third Way. Some reflections on the introduction of Constitutional Review by Judges in The Netherlands
Larry Alexander: What is the Problem of Judicial Review?
Roberto Corona Copado: Las reglas del juego democrático. La Suprema Corte de Justicia de México en la solución de controversias entre órganos del poder político desde 1995
José de J. Ibarra Cárdenas: La construcción judicial de la Democracia en Iberoamérica

VI. Deliberation on European constitutional norm / Deliberación sobre la nueva constitución europea:
Olaf Tans: Deliberating European Constitucional Norms. An Analysis of arguments
Carla M. Zoethout: The Court and the Charter or Who Guards the Court of Justice of the EU under the new Constitution?