Constitutional Semiotics - by Martin Belov (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This book offers an outline of the foundations of a theory of constitutional semiotics. It provides a systematic account of the concept of constitutional semiotics and its role in the representation and signification of meaning in constitution, constitutional law, and constitutionalism. The book explores the constitutional signification of meaning that is stretched between rational entrenchment and constitutional imagination. It provides a critical assessment of the rationalist entrapment of constitutional modernity and justifies the need to turn to 'shadow constitutionalisms': textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism.

The book puts forward innovative incentives for constitutional analysis based on constitutional semiotics as a paradigm for representation of meaning in rational, textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism. The book focuses on the textual, imaginative, and visual discourse of constitutionalism, which is built upon collective constitutional imaginaries and on the peculiar normativity of constitutional geometry and constitutional mythology as borderline phenomena entrenched in rational, textual, symbolic-imaginary and visual constitutionalism.

The book analyses concepts such as: constitutional text and texture, authoritative constitutional narratives and authoritative constitutional narrators, constitutional semiotic community, constitutional utopia, constitutional taboo, normative ideology and normative ideas, constitutional myth and mythology, constitutional symbolism, constitutional code and constitutional geometric form. It explores the textual entrenchment of constitutionalism and its repercussions for representation and signification of meaning.

Review Quotes

For the most part, most debates in contemporary constitutional theory still presuppose the validity of the dichotomies between ancient and modern, absolute and relative, or formal and material constitutions. In moving beyond the textual paradigm of modern constitutionalism which such dichotomies take for granted, Belov's path-breaking monograph draws much-needed attention to the sources of constitutional meaning which inhere in visual representations, material artefacts, and symbolically charged performances. As a pioneering contribution to the nascent field of constitutional semantics, it will also be of direct interest to anyone interested in the role of imagination in the practice of constitutional theory.
Zoran Oklopcic, Associate Professor, Carleton University, Canada

Like other cultural phenomena, legal constitutions communicate a social meaning through a complex web of signs and symbols. In his timely book, Martin Belov explores this web and offers a synthesising study of 'shadow constitutionalisms' in their textual, symbolic, imaginary and visual forms challenging a simplistic identification of constitutionalism and legality with modern rationalism. The intentional meaning of legal arguments and theoretical conceptualisations is contrasted to the spontaneous undercurrents of societal and cultural constitutionalisations which are subsequently analysed by a meta-theoretical approach of constitutional semiotics.
Jirí Pribán, Professor of Law, Cardiff University, UK

About the Author

Martin Belov is Professor in Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Sofia 'St. Kliment Ohridski', Bulgaria and Adjunct Professor at University Roma Tre, Italy.