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International Journal of Constitutional Law Advance Access published online on December 20, 2007
International Journal of Constitutional Law, doi:10.1093/icon/mom037
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© The Author 2007. Oxford University Press and New York University School of Law. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

A general theory of constitutional patriotism

Jan-Werner Müller*

* Assistant professor, Politics Department, Princeton University. Thanks for helpful comments and suggestions to: G. A. Cohen; Ciaran Cronin; Patrick Gavigan; the participants of the workshop on Constitutional Patriotism conducted by the Law and Public Affairs program, Princeton University, April 2006; and to LAPA's director, Kim Lane Scheppele, in particular; as well as to the audience at the Columbia University Social and Political Thought Seminar, December 2006. This article draws substantially on JAN-WERNER MÜLLER, CONSTITUTIONAL PATRIOTISM (Princeton Univ. Press 2007). Email: jmueller{at}princeton.edu


  Abstract

This article offers a theory of constitutional patriotism independent of the controversial social theories of modernization and rationalization with which Jürgen Habermas's version of constitutional patriotism is associated. It argues that the purpose of constitutional patriotism, as a set of beliefs and dispositions, is to enable and uphold a liberal democratic form of rule that free and equal citizens can justify to each other. The object of patriotic attachment is a specific constitutional culture that mediates between the universal and the particular, while the mode of attachment is one of critical judgment. Finally, constitutional patriotism results in a number of policy recommendations that are clearly different from policies that liberal nationalists would advocate.


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