Deliberative Constitutionalism and Constitutional Pluralism in the European Union: Synthesis or Antithesis?

Significant normative frameworks such as deliberative constitutionalism and constitutionalism pluralism have called into question the legal features of constitutions in the context of a plurality of authority claims, as well as the issue of constitutional legitimacy in circumstances of democratic deficit. There is however a limited view linking legal and political theoretical investigation in these frameworks, taken individually. The present paper claims that there can be a fruitful comparison between deliberative constitutionalism and constitutional pluralism, both in antithetic and synthetic terms. This comparison will be carried out through the epistemic investigation of a meta-constitutional rationale in transnational constitutionalism. Eventually, the paper will propose a notion of communal constitutionalism gathering elements from both normative frameworks and introducing an innovative rationale, with an emphasis on the role of future generations.