{"id":111,"date":"2026-04-02T17:24:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/?p=111"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:24:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:24:53","slug":"too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/2026\/04\/02\/too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Too utopian\u2019: Theories of Utopia in constituent power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In her latest article in <em>Global Constitutionalism<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncl.ac.uk\/law\/people\/profile\/ruthhoughton.html\">Ruth Houghton<\/a> explores the relationship between theories of utopia and approaches to constitutional change in theories of constitutional law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/global-constitutionalism\/article\/too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power\/0E9DDB1BD03AE971483CBACFFF413DDC?utm_campaign=shareaholic&amp;utm_medium=copy_link&amp;utm_source=bookmark\">https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/global-constitutionalism\/article\/too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power\/0E9DDB1BD03AE971483CBACFFF413DDC?utm_campaign=shareaholic&amp;utm_medium=copy_link&amp;utm_source=bookmark<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The abstract of the paper reads: There is something utopian about constituent power, whether this is the unrealisable idea of \u201cthe people\u201d or the world-building nature of constitutional change. However, in contemporary constitutional scholarship \u201cutopia\u201d is more often used as a pejorative critique of reform projects that are seen as idealistic ambitious calls for constitutional change, which might fail for being \u201ctoo utopian\u201d, \u201ctoo idealistic\u201d, \u201ctoo unrealistic\u201d. In an attempt to move beyond this critique, this article draws on alternative approaches to utopianism to uncover the temporal assumptions underpinning contemporary approaches to constituent power and highlights the different approaches that can be exposed if theories of utopian-thinking are foregrounded. Both utopia and constituent power are closely aligned with visions of alternative futures, and constitutional scholars agree that there is an intersection between utopian thinking and the subjectivities, temporalities and operationalisation of constituent power. Moving away from utilising utopia as a pejorative label and engaging instead with what it can expose about temporalities, offers alternative approaches to the study of constituent power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In her latest article in Global Constitutionalism, Ruth Houghton explores the relationship between theories of utopia and approaches to constitutional change in theories of constitutional law. https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/global-constitutionalism\/article\/too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power\/0E9DDB1BD03AE971483CBACFFF413DDC?utm_campaign=shareaholic&amp;utm_medium=copy_link&amp;utm_source=bookmark The abstract of the paper reads: There is something utopian about constituent power, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/2026\/04\/02\/too-utopian-theories-of-utopia-in-constituent-power\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nu-cusp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}