Democracy and Emergency: Finding the Constitutional Foundation of the Knowledgeable State in Social Dynamics

This article aims to bring to light the law-society dynamic relationship in constitutional governance by engaging the question of political constitutionalism in constitutional governance from the perspective of institutional epistemology. It first reframes the debate surrounding legal and political constitutionalism as one concerning the state’s epistemic competence in governance shaped by the constitution and then traces how constitutional ordering has given rise to the knowledgeable state by setting a unique societal dynamic in motion – the epistemico-political constitution. Illustrated by WHO’s early response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a two-fold argument is submitted. First, constitutional ordering institutes a process of knowledge production embedded in the interaction between the state and society – a unique law-society dynamic – that responds to governance needs. Second, given the current law-society dynamic in the suprastate political landscape, the legitimacy challenge facing expertise-steered global governance is further intensified as more crisis responses are expected from outside the state.