Constitutional Pluralism and Dissensus over Liberal Democracy

In this chapter, I suggest understanding the illiberal, or better anti-liberal, reaction to liberal constitutionalism as the result of a long-term mobilisation of counterforces around a dissensus on liberal democracy and its main constitutional approach and mindset.2 It can be argued that in recent years an initially rather marginal or peripheral set of protests and protest movements has been able to move to the political centre, attacking the liberal-constitutional hegemony head on. Various heterodox positions and practices come together in an alternative, counter-constitutional project. In the chapter, I first briefly discuss the role of dissensus in relation to constitutionalism and constitutional pluralism, identifying “counter-constitutionalism” as a form of heterodox critique of the hegemony of liberal constitutionalism. Second, I discuss the predominance of liberal constitutionalism and, third, briefly analyse the anti-liberal dissensus and the emergence of a counter-constitutional project.