Egon Zweig and Constituent Power as Habsburg Modernism

Abstract This chapter focuses on the writings of Egon Zweig, whose book, Die Lehre vom Pouvoir Constituant, has been central to debates about constituent power in modern political and legal theory. Its centrality, however, came about largely because it inspired a very particular and partial reading by Carl Schmitt. And while Schmitt’s arguments have been extremely influential, Zweig’s work itself has been almost entirely neglected. Setting Zweig’s work back in its own contexts and on its own terms, however, suggests that it might more profitably be seen as part of an entangled network of legal and political arguments and histories, circling around the ideas of Georg Jellinek particularly, and with different emphases to those outlined by Schmitt. Indeed, by focusing on the seemingly spectral qualities of constituent power to which both Zweig and Jellinek allude, my discussion suggests that Zweig’s arguments are best understood as a form of Habsburg modernism.