Constituent power beyond exceptionalism: Irregular migration, disobedience, and (re-)constitution

Abstract

This article argues that, far from being a merely defensive act of individual protest, civil disobedience is a much more radical political practice. It is transformative in that it aims at the politicization of questions that are excluded from the political domain and at reconfiguring public space and existing institutions, often in comprehensive ways. Focusing on the reconstitution of the political community also allows us to reconceptualize constituent power. Rather than portraying it as a quasi-mythical force erupting only in extraordinary moments, constituent power can be conceptualized as a dynamic situated within established orders, transgressing their logic and reconfiguring them from within. Civil disobedience as a transformative and potentially comprehensive practice aimed at reconstituting the political order can then be seen as an internal driving force keeping this dialectic in play. A concrete example can be found in protests and border struggles by irregularized migrants. They show how unexpected forms of civil disobedience manage to politicize symbolic and institutional structures that are usually taken for granted or naturalized and thereby removed from politicization, such as borders and citizenship. In this way, they exemplify not only the defensive/reactive but also the constituent/transformative force of disobedience.