If we do not want to pretend that legal expressions have some kind of ontological ‘essence’, then we have two (‘anti-essentialist’) options: either (1) we should view their meanings as their role played in the constitutional discourse (description of the usual meanings of legal terms), or (2) we should recognize that the definition and re-definition of constitutional concepts are never just descriptions, but they are rather suggestions about their meanings which are consistent with our political preferences. The latter option, which I believe is nearer to the reality of constitutional discourses than the first one, means that there is an ongoing political struggle over who defines concepts and how, and concepts are viewed something like squares on a chessboard which can be occupied. Thus, when we ‘describe’ the constitutional concepts we actually do not just describe them but rather implicitly prescribe a use which favors our political preferences.

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.
Join ICON•S