Constitutional Imaginaries: A Theory of European Societal Constitutionalism

‘Constitutional imaginaries’ has been one of the buzzwords within the non-doctrinal legal research of recent years; everything is either ‘imaginary’ or ‘narrative’, especially regarding the constitutional dimension. However, Jiří Přibáň’s writing on constitutional imaginaries dates to before it became fashionable. His book Constitutional Imaginaries: A Theory ofEuropean Societal Constitutionalism is the third in a trilogy –which also includes Legal Symbolism:OnLaw, Timeand European Identity1 and Sovereignty in Post-Sovereign Society: A Systems Theory ofEuropean Constitutionalism2 – that focuses on the phenomenon of social imaginaries centred around the social system of law. The trilogy explores the potential of law to foster political identities, through either the symbolism of legal communication or the imaginary ofsovereignty. In this trilogy, Přibáň first investigates the imaginary unity ofsociety and its legal systemwithin the framework ofthe nationstate and then debunks it by offering a way out of this unity of topos (space), ethnos (people), and nomos (the legal order). It is precisely the inquiry into this unity, its problems, and possible alternatives to it that constitutes the main contribution ofPribáň’s thinking as expressed in Constitutional Imaginaries.