Novas contribuições para a teoria do poder constituinte e o problema da fundação moderna da legitimidade

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship among revolution, Constitution, constituent power and political authority in the context of late 18th century. First, it approaches the concept of Constitution for the Antiquity and the middle ages. Second, it focuses on the historical process of the American Revolution and the French Revolution, in order to reconstruct the problem of the principium and the different solutions to this issue on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Next, it reconstructs critically some conceptions about constituent power´s theory through the last two centuries. Finally, it presents a contemporary understanding about Constitution , constituent power and constituent process appropriated to the proceduralist paradigm of Constitucional Democracy.