11 - The Material Constitution and Imperialism

Summary

Orthodox Eurocentric accounts of constitutionalism and constitutional law see the birth of modern constitutions as the product of processes internal to Europe, whereupon an increasingly enlightened civil society broke with the shackles of feudalism, absolutism and their attendant legal forms. Foreground the material context of ‘modern’ liberal constitutionalism and constitutions, this chapter argues instead these were born out of the blood and violence of empire and that they continue to be implicated in the reproduction of imperialism or, to be more precise, of capitalist imperialism defined as a global, Western-led, gendered and racialised system of domination and exploitation inherent to capitalism. To illustrate some of the connections between constitutionalism, constitutional law and capitalist imperialism, the chapter draws on select examples from British and French imperialism and pays particular attention to the ways in which racialisation structured their relationship at different stages of (imperial) capitalist development.