the temporalities of law This is very apparent in the contemporary world. Since about 1980, the unceasing process of nationalizing constitutions has been replaced by an internationalizing trend. The constitutions’ general political and cultural qualities are no longer regarded expressions of nation-states – as in much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – but rather as a means for realizing values that transcend national values. This change from nationalization to internalization is apparent in the way in which international regimes of human rights supplement the civil rights sections of national constitutions. Any national constitution is connected to the vast new international (global and European) norm regimes, with their extraordinarily large number of texts and their heterogenic interrelations. The administration of popular sovereignty has been transformed by new international regimes such as that of theEU, and of course the reactions to these trends. In the new international order, debate continues about national constitutions. Contemporary constitutions are no longer just part of the national project, with its specific narratives and teleological time. Yet it would be wrong to assume that national constitutions, as they are practised, de-emphasize national references. National constitutions are not solely defined through international treaties and conventions, and international concepts such as the rule of law and human rights are not yet the sole raison d’être of national constitutions. Because they work in specific, nationally defined societies, which have their own rhetorical, legal, and linguistic cultures, these constitutions have national and temporal dimensions alongside the international dimensions. We could even claim that it now appears necessary to pay attention to the national dimensions – to what has been called ‘constitutional patriotism’– to ensure a shared, public, democratic appreciation of the constitution. Today, the political and social identities of a constitution exist in the tensions between multitudes of narratives, with their attendant specificities of history, regionalism, nationalism, internationalism, and, where required, Europeanism. This seems to be a contemporary experience with a more uncertain future than before. 327
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