Constitutional patriotism and its social carriers: a functional ecology of democratic membership

Abstract

Constitutional patriotism offers a non-ethnic account of political attachment centred on democratic principles and practices. Its defenders approach the social and institutional realization of such attachment from different theoretical directions, while critics question whether it can sustain solidarity in plural societies. This article asks: Under what institutional and social conditions can constitutional patriotism become a socially credible and durable form of democratic membership? It answers by developing a systematic reconstruction and functional typology of the institutional mediation of constitutional attachment. Constitutional principles may possess normative validity independently of particular institutional arrangements; the distinct question is how they become publicly intelligible, practically consequential, durable, and available for political enactment. Social carriers are recurrent arrangements with an identifiable role in mediating constitutional commitments within democratic membership. The article organizes insights dispersed across theories of constitutional patriotism, social citizenship, recognition, representation, public communication, and democratic education into a heuristic carrier ecology structured by translation, incorporation, authorization, contestation, and temporalization. The resulting ecology is conflictual and context-sensitive: it identifies reinforcement, obstruction, and failure without treating any institutional configuration as a sufficient cause of constitutional attachment.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2026 · DOI ↗