Power, Limits, and the Absent People
Who truly holds power in a democracy, and how is that power constrained?
This enduring question lies at the heart of modern constitutional theory and remains central to contemporary debates on governance, legitimacy, and political stability. In The Absent Sovereign and the Invisible Foundation: Political Liberalism’s Aporias in Theorizing Constituent Power , Mykhailo Minakov re-examines a central problem of modern democracy: how to reconcile the sovereignty of “the people” with the legal and institutional constraints that shape and limit political power.
Engaging with recent scholarship on intergenerational constitutionalism, particularly Alessandro Ferrara’s work, the article reveals a deeper structural tension within political liberalism. It argues that efforts to ground democracy in rational, law-bound frameworks inevitably introduce hidden constraints, while at the same time displacing sovereignty into an abstract, transgenerational “people” that is never fully present in political reality. What emerges is a model of democracy defined not by resolution, but by persistent contradiction.
Rather than treating these tensions as flaws to be corrected, Minakov suggests they are essential to the functioning of constitutional democracy itself. The balance between freedom and constraint, continuity and renewal, reflects a political condition that cannot be fully stabilized without undermining its democratic character. In this sense, democracy endures not by eliminating its internal contradictions, but by sustaining them.
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