CONSTITUTION AND MODERNITY: NOTES ON THE EMERGENCE OF THE MODERN IDEA OF CONSTITUTION IN THE LIGHT OF NIKLAS LUHMANN, JÜRGEN HABERMAS, REINHART KOSELLECK AND MENELICK DE CARVALHO NETTO

Abstract

This paper records an oral communication given by the authors during the X Congress of the Brazilian Association of Researchers in Sociology of Law (ABraSD). On the occasion, an initial draft of the discipline in preparation regarding the emergence of the modern idea of the Constitution was presented. In general terms, it aims to assess how – and in what terms – the recovery of the concept of Constitution and its resignification took place throughout the experience of modernity. The modern idea of the Constitution is presented as an evolutionary acquisition of modernity, which found in it an effective mechanism of structural coupling between law and politics (LUHMANN, 1990). Much more than a mere description of social structures, the Constitution of the moderns begins to function as a juridical-political act of institution of a community founded on principles, in which equality and freedom are reciprocally recognized to all and by all (CARVALHO NETTO and SCOTTI, 2011).