Sieyès, Constituent Power, and Revolution

Abstract This chapter presents a new account of constituent power in the thought of Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, with a particular focus on the relationship between constituent power and the practical demands of French revolutionary politics after 1789. Drawing on Sieyès’s public writings and private manuscripts, the chapter provides both a historical outline of the origins and evolution of Sieyès’s conception of constituent power and tackles the complex and much-debated relationships between constituent power, revolution, democracy, and popular sovereignty. In so doing, it challenges recent scholarship, which has questioned Sieyès’s commitment to popular power, and suggests a new reading of his political thought focused on its role as a practical and pragmatic contribution to revolutionary politics.