Chapter 1: Subjective Figures of the Crisis ... - Negri in English

incapable today of launching an effective dynamic of
constitutional reform. The republican constitutions themselves
can no longer be reformed or redeemed. A new constituent
process is needed to transform the constitutional order and social
terrain. We see the foundation from which to initiate such a
process in the principles and truths constructed by the
movements. Although we are in no position to sketch even the
broad outlines of this unknown terrain, based on what we have
analyzed thus far we can distinguish some of its characteristics.
As a first approach, then, let us preserve for explanatory'
purposes the three traditional constitutional functionslegislative,
executive, and judiciary'—and investigate how they
might be transformed by the new constituent principles.
Legislative. A legislative power in a constituent process
must be not an organ of representation but one that facilitates
and fosters the participation of all in the governing of social life
and political decision making. In fact, in many historical
instances as far back at least as the eighteenth century, legislative
assemblies have successfully launched such constituent
experiments. In these moments, which have often been brief,
politics was brought down to the level of social reality and
reconfigured according to the expression of social needs and
desires. In several contemporary' cases, too, such as some of the
Latin American experiences we cited earlier, constituent
assemblies have played an innovative role by bringing together
and giving expression to a range of social forces. The legislative
face of a constituent power must reflect and embody the
multiplicity of social movements and social forces and thereby
interpret the plural ontology of politics.
Federalism is thus a fundamental principle of a constituent
legislative power. By federal here we do not mean a central
authority ruling over smaller political units such as states or
provinces. Instead we understand federal in a more basic sense
as an open, extensive relation among diverse political forces
spread across the social terrain and not subsumed under an
abstract, centralized unity. The shape of federalist organization
as we intend it, in other words, is not pyramidal but horizontal
and extensive. Such a federalism fosters the plural and
process-oriented dimensions of politics.