Feminist Approaches to Constituent Power

Abstract Discussions on constituent power are often concerned with who has authority to bring about constitutional change, and liberal constitutionalist responses argue that the power lies with the people. But women have long been overlooked. There is not a school of scholarship dedicated to feminist constituent power. Rather, we draw on feminist theories exploring subjectivity, agency, protest, and public space to articulate what feminist approaches to constituent power could be. This chapter draws on feminist theories to ask questions about the construction of constituent power holders and to shift our focus away from sites of classical exercises of constituent power towards other spaces. The first section of the chapter draws on feminist theory to consider the construction of constituent power-holders. The second section focuses on the exercise of power and what we learn from feminist activism about when and where claims of constituent power take place.