LAUSR

legal continuity and pluralistic roundtable discussion in place of the ruptural foundation of constituent power, all of which is augmented through case studies from Hungary, Turkey and, to a lesser extent, South Africa. Arato’s argument is rigorous and the central contention, that the post-sovereign paradigm of constitution making represents the best alternative to authoritarianism under the veil of populism, is largely convincing. Nevertheless, the problem of legitimacy hangs over this model too. If post-sovereign constitution making is characterised by legal continuity and roundtable constitution writing alongside the legislative assembly, a further question arises: if a regime has entered a crisis of legitimacy to the extent that a new constitution is required, how is legal continuity to establish the requisite legitimacy of the new constitution? For Arato, legality guarantees inclusivity and transparency which provides legitimacy to the process, along with some rather thick, prescriptive stipulations over the constitution that follows. While Arato is correct that this is preferential to a veiled authoritarianism, he expresses concern elsewhere of an exercise of government imposition that seeks incumbent advantage (p. 93). Roundtables seek to negate this, although it comes at the cost of imposition of another form, namely, a weighty proceduralism that diminishes the space for innovation that Arendt wanted to celebrate in constitution writing. This should not take away from a compelling effort to confront one of the more pressing problems in contemporary democratic theory.