Global Perspectives on Constitutionalism and Populism

If the definition of a constitution involves decisions between competing understandings of the essence of the people as defined by their beliefs, the relation between constitutionalism and populism is in fact more a matter of myth than of rationality. The advent of populism poses a threat to the legitimacy of a constitution because it indicates a conflict over the character of its mythic basis. Such conflict is playing itself out all over the world, and this issue of Telos addresses how the various global examples of populist unrest are manifestations of struggles on the level of myth, theology, and ideology to define a constitutional order.

Introduction
David Pan

Law and Representation: Observations from an American Constitutionalist
Paul W. Kahn

Contra Originalism: The Elusive Text
Aryeh Botwinick

Populism in Venezuela: The Nature of Chavismo
Antonio Lecuna

Servants of the People: Populism, Nationalism, State-Building, and Virtual Reality in Contemporary Ukraine
Matthias Schwartz

Constituting the Nation in Theodor Fontane'sVor dem Sturm
Russell A. Berman

Cultural Self-Confidence and Constellated Community: An Extended Discussion of Some Speeches by Xi Jinping
Huimin Jin

Supranational Governance and the Problem of the "Dignified Constitution"
Adam K. Webb

Notes and Commentary

Notes on Ideology, International Order, and Foreign Policy
Luis Valenzuela-Vermehren

Forum on the Changing Character of the Public Sphere

The Changing Public Sphere in America: The Fragility of Civic Awareness, Common Community, and Electoral Democracy Today
Timothy W. Luke

Speaking B.S. to Truth: The Public Sphere in the Age of Trump
Jay A. Gupta

The Closing of the American Public Sphere
Mark G. E. Kelly

Reviews

Canceling Israel?
Gabriel Noah Brahm