Constitutionalizing Inequality and the Clash of Globalizations

Abstract

Intensified inequalities, social dislocations and human insecurity have coincided with a redefinition of the political in the emerging world order. Part of this redefinition involves the emergence of new constitutionalism. New constitutionalism limits democratic control over central elements of economic policy and regulation by locking in future governments to liberal frameworks of accumulation premised on freedom of enterprise. New political “limits of the possible” are also redefined by a “clash of globalizations” as new constitutionalism and more generally “globalization from above” is contested from below by nationalists, populists and fundamentalists as well as diverse progressive movements in innovative forms of global political agency.