Are constitution-makers political representatives? In this paper, I argue that absent the creation of new constitution-making procedures and institutions, framers cannot be understood as political representatives in the traditional sense because, among other things, accountability mechanisms are lacking. However, I argue that this is unproblematic, because the ideal relationship between representatives and their constituents, at least as explained by mainstream accounts in democratic theory, runs against the central task facing constitution-makers. This finding provides reason to be suspicious of the uncritical importation of normative concepts designed to explain ordinary democratic politics to the realm of constitution-making.

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICON·S Executive Committee has decided to postpone our 2020 Conference to 2021. Our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021, in Wrocław, Poland.
Procedural details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow in the months ahead.
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