Introduction
‘This March 8, the earth trembles. The women of the world unite and organise a measure of strength and common cry: Women’s International Strike. We stop. We strike, we organise, and we are among us. We put into practice the world in which we want to live’.Footnote 1 Thus begins the 2017 manifesto Call to Women’s International Strike by the coalition Ni Una Menos (Not One Less), setting the stage for one of the largest International Women’s Day demonstrations in recent decades.Footnote 2 As in this and other moments in the history of social movements, manifestos have been key political tools for building movements, advancing demands and claiming power. However, they have largely remained underexplored in constitutional literature, particularly in relation to how they express claims to constituent power and engage with questions of democratic representation.
Manifestos have been extensively analysed in both political science literature on electoral competition and social movement discourse analysis and rather less in constitutional law. For example, since 2000, more than 650 academic articles have been published in high-impact journals using data from the Manifesto Project, mostly involving countries in the global North.Footnote 3 This kind of research relies on a specific concept of ‘manifesto’ as a ‘text published by a political party or presidential candidate in order to compete for votes in national elections’.Footnote 4 Similarly, most systematic discourse analytical studies of manifestos focus on party manifestos (rather than social movements manifestos). These types of studies typically engage in linguistic analysis, e.g. word frequencies or syntactic structures of sentences.Footnote 5 Constitutional law scholars, in turn, have been oblivious to exploring manifestos as an object of study. For instance, ‘war manifestos’ used by sovereigns to justify their resort to arms played a significant legal function in Europe until the eighteenth century; however, legal doctrine has almost completely overlooked war manifestos.Footnote 6 In this scenario, most theoretical approaches do not capture manifestos made by political groups other than political parties, nor manifestos in support media other than written text, let alone those emerging from Latin American countries.
The absence of analysis in social sciences, not to mention constitutional law, of manifestos adopted in Latin America by political actors other than political parties and manifestos in the form of images, melodies and texts, leaves a substantial gap in knowledge. Latin American social movements have a long tradition of engaging in these kinds of manifestos as non-written documents to raise their voices and claim power.Footnote 7 Among them, the political standpoints and experiences of women and gender dissidences have been conducted through fragments of images, melodies and texts that are part of the production of knowledge of social and feminist movements. Many of these texts are not recorded; they are communications, declarations, letters and oral testimonies that transcend academic settings. They are a political expression that, while constituting itself, leaves traces of the different paths of Latin American history, for example the manifestos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico, such as the Revolutionary Law of Women,Footnote 8 the Declaration of Mapuche Women and their commitment to the struggle of their people,Footnote 9 the Declaration of Mama Quta Titikaka, on the occasion of the global mobilisation in defence of Mother Earth and the Peoples in 2009,Footnote 10 and the Ethical-Political Manifesto of Black/Afro-Colombian women signed in Valle del Cauca in 2009.Footnote 11 This diversity of political expressions, which illustrates the richness of Latin American feminist sentiments and experiences, highlights both the collective nature of authorship and the variety of media through which feminist manifestos are articulated.
But how do we understand or capture these political expressions in constitutional law? Or in other words, how do these political expressions shape constitutional theory and practice? In their ground-breaking work, Ruth Houghton and Aoife O’Donoghue draw a functional relationship between feminist manifestos and constitutional theory expressed through four separated but interrelated strands: (i) feminist manifestos as a tool for denouncing historical exclusion, (ii) feminist manifestos as a tool for the building of political group, (iii) feminist manifestos as evidence of claims of constituent power and (iv) feminist manifestos as a tool for highlighting the limitations of constructions and conceptualisations of constituent power.Footnote 12 Drawing on Verónica Gago’s approach and based on the idea of feminist power as a constant and collective experience that brings together diverse experiences, expectations, trajectories and memories,Footnote 13 Houghton and O’Donoghue persuasively argue: ‘reading feminist manifestos and exploring their complex relationship with ideas of constituent power problematizes these debates. Feminist manifestos disrupt the construction of both the “we” and “the people” as constituent power-holders’.Footnote 14
Houghton and O’Donoghue work on a performative proposal of feminist constituent power. Their contribution is significant insofar as they open a debate that has been little explored in feminist academia. However, while Houghton and O’Donoghue explain how feminist manifestos serve a constitutive function through the formation of groups, they overlook the issue of political representation in the construction of group identity. Furthermore, they leave unaddressed how one might take these claims of constituent power and proceduralise or institutionalise them. This raises the following questions, which this paper seeks to address: What role does political representation play within a theory of feminist constituent power? How might the relationship between manifestos and institutionalised politics unfold within this framework? On a more tactical–political level, how do we transition from the streets to institutions, and what might potentially be lost in that process?
In this paper, I argue that, as fruitful as the relationship between feminist manifestos and constitutional theory and practice may be, a conception of constituent power – that is, the power of the people to create or fundamentally amend a constitution – that dismisses political representation leaves open the crucial question of how will is attributed in the making of democratic constitutions. If we are to accept that democratic self-constitution is incompatible with representation, we must also accept that the people, in exercising constituent power, immediately present themselves. I argue that this is not only impossible but also undesirable. Political representation plays a key role in understanding the exercise of constituent power because it enables the constitution of a political community by mediating between individual and collective agency, thereby making democratic self-constitution possible. Consequently, political representation must serve as a form of collective action that enables citizens to participate effectively in decision-making.
This paper is structured as follows. In Section ‘The performative conception of constituent power’, I explore the relationship between manifestos as a form of speaking and claiming power used by feminist and women’s movements, and constitutional theory, as sketched by Ruth Houghton and Aoife O’Donoghue.Footnote 15 I focus on the performative relationship that Houghton and O’Donoghue trace between manifestos and their conception of constituent power, in order to highlight what is missing from their account: political representation.
In Section ‘Why political representation matters for feminist constituent power’, I argue that political representation is essential for an adequate account of feminist constituent power. To establish this claim, I first elaborate on the concept of political representation and then explain its relationship with constituent power. In unpacking the different dimensions of representation, I address two distinct questions: the first concerns the act of representing within political or institutional processes, while the second pertains to the construction of group identity. I develop both within a normative framework that understands political representation as a dynamic process through which the social is translated into the political.
In Section ‘Crafting political representation through feminist manifestos’, I examine the relationship between feminist manifestos and political representation. To this end, I analyse the idea and practice of collective authorship and the various forms that feminist manifestos may take, including unwritten or non-textual modes. The analysis of these two elements highlights the central contribution of this work: namely, both the potential and the challenges involved in theorising feminist manifestos as articulations of constituent power.
Finally, in Section ‘The Chilean case’, I analyse the meeting points between feminist manifestos and constitutional theory by looking at the involvement of the Chilean feminist movement in the 2019–2022 constitution-making process, globally renowned for its gender and feminist dimension.Footnote 16 I focus on the role played by the Coordinadora Feminista 8 de Marzo (hereafter, CF8M) as the most relevant political organisation on the national stage.
The article concludes that the potential of feminist manifestos to re-imagine constituent power is undermined if political representation is dismissed as an essential element of constitutional democracy. Thus, despite the benefits of the creative capacity of the feminist movement as a holder of power in the sense of potentia, its potential for democratic constitution-making is still blurred.
The performative conception of constituent power
In the cleavage of detractors and defenders of (the different approaches to) the theory of constituent power,Footnote 17 the latter have adopted a variety of strategies to rearticulate the concept of constituent power, such as to reject the sociological idea of the people as an organic unity,Footnote 18 or to bring in a dialogical or reflexive conceptualisation.Footnote 19 The work of Ruth Houghton and Aoife O’Donoghue is part of this trend by offering a feminist and performative account of constituent power.
Houghton and O’Donoghue use the notion of power theorised by Veronica Gago, who adopts an understanding of power inspired by the writings of Spinoza and MarxFootnote 20 to describe the feminist potencia as a feminist approach to constituent power. According to Gago, a distinction is traditionally made between power and potency, derived from the Latin potestas and potentia, respectively. The former understands power as something static and constituted, while the latter emphasises its dynamic and constitutive dimension. In this sense, power as potentia refers to our capacity to act, to be affected and to affect our environment, whereas power as potestas requires mechanisms of representation that separate the represented from their capacity to act.Footnote 21 For Gago, feminist potencia offers an account of constituent power that encompasses both potestas and potentia. This is crucial to her analysis, as she collapses the distinction between these two elements within the concept of feminist potencia.
Based on this understanding of feminist potencia, Houghton and O’Donoghue adopt an approach to constituent power marked by two elements. On the one hand, Houghton and O’Donoghue use feminist manifestos to rethink the idea of the people as a holder of constituent power, arguing that in feminist manifestos the ‘we’ is performative, so it is a continuous partiality. Houghton and O’Donoghue claim a rejection of the production of universal and totalising theories of the constitution of the ‘we’. On the other hand, Houghton and O’Donoghue use feminist manifestos to decouple or separate constituent power from specific constitutional moments. This is because through performance, manifestos not only describe the reality but also produce and shape that reality. I will develop these two ideas.
Houghton and O’Donoghue argue that, to the extent that feminist manifestos account for other life experiences, political forms and practices, groups and spaces of identity, they disrupt the construction of the ‘we the people’ as holders of constituent power. This is so because, Houghton and O’Donoghue argue, by representing gender through repetition, imitation, quotation or iteration, feminist manifestos are able to disarticulate the meanings with which male manifestos are invested. The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen by Olympe de Gouges and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions are good examples of this. These two instruments are repetitions or re-readings of foundational documents that in their narratives excluded women. This repetitive exercise is a form of re-experiencing meanings to undo and challenge previously established meanings. In doing so, feminist manifestos challenge the masculine and patriarchal construction of the ‘we’ that lies at the heart of modern constitutional theory.Footnote 22
At the same time, according to Houghton and O’Donoghue, this iterative aspect of the manifesto structure shows the ongoing partiality of feminist views and the rejection of the production of a universal, totalising theory.Footnote 23 As it turned out, Houghton and O’Donoghue adopt a particular yet increasingly influential conception of constituent power according to which the constituent power must be exercised by the entire citizenry.Footnote 24 In these cases, as Colón-Ríos explains, ‘the emphasis is on finding a means for allowing the human beings that will become subject to the constitution to become its authors’.Footnote 25
On the idea that constituent power remains dormant after the constitutional or foundational moment, it has been thought that it is a kind of continuum of constituent power in the constitutional machine as a latent power which can emerge and be effectively configured from time to time.Footnote 26 In Schmitt’s interpretation, the constituent power does not vanish after a constitution in enacted, and it continues to exist ‘alongside and above the constitution’.Footnote 27 In this debate, part of the doctrine argues that constituent power is inexhaustible (in this sense, Carl Schmitt and Antoni Negri),Footnote 28 while others claim that constituent power finds its end in constitutional enactment (in this sense, e.g. Ulrich Preuss).Footnote 29
Houghton and O’Donoghue argue that, through their performative function, feminist manifestos decouple constituent power from specific constitutional moments. This detachment is needed to allow those who were excluded from the founding moment to enter the political community and as a form of recognition of the destructive potential of constituent power. Otherwise, constituent power is reduced to constituted power. Hence, Houghton and O’Donoghue dismantle the idea that constituent power is fixed and that its power is extinguished in the constituent moment.Footnote 30 In this position, they are very close to the ideas of Joel Colón-Ríos, for whom ‘the people’ must manifest themselves not only in extraordinary moments.Footnote 31
For Houghton and O’Donoghue, the revolutionary rupture is necessary to reconstitute the political system. In this sense, this approach is similar to Schmitt, Böckenförde and Negri’s ones. For these latter authors, however, constituent power is conceived as a political action that unfolds in a ‘constitutional vacuum’ as a result of the revolutionary rupture that is necessary to reconstitute the political entity.Footnote 32 For Houghton and O’Donoghue, constituent power has no place in a constitutional vacuum. On the contrary, the authors recognise the constant creative exercise of feminist movements because, these authors argue, feminist texts reject the calcification of the ‘constitutional moment’.Footnote 33
For Houghton and O’Donoghue, following Gago’s approach, the situated character, constant composition and plurality in the formation of collective identity – synthesised in the idea of the ‘we’ as performance – seem to dissolve the distance between the people as the holder of constituent power and the people subject to that power. In other words, Houghton and O’Donoghue collapse the distinction between constituent and constituted. For Houghton and O’Donoghue, halfway between normativism and decisionism,Footnote 34 representation seems not to be necessary because by dissolving the distance between the people as the holder of constituent power and the people subject to that power, the feminist movement through manifestos seems to disrupt representational practices. This is also a consequence of the distinction between power as potentia and power as potestas; only the latter needs the mechanisms of representation that separate the represented from their potency or capacity to do.Footnote 35 Verónica Gago argues,
With this new mode of constructing politics, it is almost too obvious to chant that those legislating do not represent us. A feminist version of the “They all must go”, which synthesized the crisis of 2001, seems almost unnecessary. We have already crossed that threshold. It was made clear that the regime of representation that is maintained with its back to the street has nothing to do with the feminist way of doing politics and making history.Footnote 36
However, as Hans Lindahl argues in his critique of Schmitt, the rupture or disruption in the practices of representation ‘does not – and cannot – reveal a people immediately present to itself as a collective subject’.Footnote 37 This is because constituent power not only implies the exercise of power by a people but also, through representative practices, simultaneously constitutes a people.Footnote 38 In other words, in exercising constituent power, ‘the people’ constitute themselves as a political community by creating a collective will that is distinct from its individual parts, hence the centrality of political representation in democratic politics.
In this context, performative theories that describe the interactions between constituent power and manifestos, as proposed by Houghton and O’Donoghue, offer a helpful analytical framework. This is because, through performance, manifestos not only claim or describe a reality, but also produce and shape that reality. As such, ‘self-constitution’ is a collective action that both establishes a political community (which does not yet properly exist) but also claims to act on its behalf (as if it already exists). Thus, it is the performative nature of manifestos that underlines their capacity to constitute a political group or space. To the extent that Houghton and O’Donoghue discuss how manifestos create groups, they seem to open up a discussion about the role of political representation in this process. However, they did not frame the discussion in this way. This leaves open the question of what it means for the people to exercise constituent power in democratic constitution-making.
Overall, Houghton and O’Donoghue offer a promising alternative through their performative conception of constituent power, which enables a continuous and situated process of constituting the people. However, by collapsing the distinction between potestas and potentia, they risk undermining the relevance of the distinction between the people as holders of constituent power and the people as those who exercise it. In doing so, they risk marginalising the role of political representation. It is precisely within this conceptual space that political representation must be reinstated as a central element for the democratic articulation and institutionalisation of constituent power. Without it, the question of how collective will is attributed and enacted in constitution-making remains unanswered.
Why political representation matters for feminist constituent power
A robust account of feminist constituent power must confront the question of political representation. This section argues that political representation is not only compatible with but essential to democratic constitution-making. I begin by clarifying two distinct yet complementary meanings of political representation and then examine how they relate to constituent power, particularly in light of the distinction between the people as holders and as agents of that power. I then highlight the central role that political representation plays in enabling the exercise of constituent power in democratic contexts.
Conceptual foundations of political representation
Any adequate account of feminist constituent power requires engaging with the concept of political representation. This is precisely what performative theories tend to omit. While such theories illuminate how manifestos and other performative acts bring political communities into being by claiming to act on their behalf, they often neglect to examine the representational structures that mediate this process. In other words, if manifestos constitute political groups through speech acts that presuppose a collective subject, then the question of who speaks, for whom and with what authority becomes central. Without a critical account of political representation, the performative constitution of a political community risks remaining analytically incomplete, obscuring the ways in which feminist constituent power is articulated, claimed and legitimised within democratic constitution-making.
To clarify what is at stake in this discussion, I will use the term political representation in two distinct senses. First, I will use it in the way that Andrew Rehfeld refers to as substantive. That is, referring to ‘the set of important substantive issues, normative, historical, and institutional questions related to the functioning of representative government’.Footnote 39 This points out to the meaning and value of representative government, its institutional structure or the ways in which its mechanisms can be used to translate the social into politics, to use Nadia Urbinati’s formulation. Within this approach, political representation addresses institutional questions but is not confined to electoral settings. The dynamics of collective representation and opinion formation may occur outside formal electoral politics. In other words, representation is not reducible to institutionalised electoral processes. While these processes do play a role in will formation, they are not the sole mechanisms at work. Democratic politics and constitution-making must leave room for other forms of political representation and representative practices to contribute to the shaping of collective will. As Nadia Urbinati explains, representation is a political process that extends beyond deliberation and decision-making within formal legislative bodies.Footnote 40 It is possible thus to think that the dynamics of political representation operate in different and complementary ways.Footnote 41
In addition to the question of representation in a political or institutional process, there is also the question of the construction of group identity. This is the second use I give to the idea of political representation. In this sense, political representation is understood as a process of communication between civil and political society that is constitutive and facilitates the formation of political groups and identities. This means that political representation does not merely reflect or reproduce, nor does it simply channel something that already exists elsewhere or outside of politics. Rather, political representation, as a process, plays an essential role in constituting the very aspects of reality that it is supposed to represent. In other words, rather than merely reflecting reality, representative practices constitute the reality that we live in.
On the conception of political representation as a normative matter that covers both uses, I follow Nadia Urbinati’s approach. Political representation, Urbinati explains, considers representation dynamically rather than statically. Political representation’s aspiration is not to make visible a pre-existing reality – the unity of the state or nation –, but ‘a form of political existence created by the actors (the constituency and the representative)’.Footnote 42 Therefore, representation is a form of political process which is not confined to deliberation and decisions in the legislative setting. In this process, which allows the social to be translated into politics, the communication between civil and political society is constitutive and facilitates the formation of political groups and identities.Footnote 43 This approach conceives political representation as the essence of democracy, as it is constituted by representative practices.Footnote 44 From this perspective, it is understood that in democratic constitution-making, the exercise of constituent power by the people requires some form of political representation.
Political representation and the exercise of constituent power
Although it has largely occupied a central place in contemporary constitutional thought, the meaning of constituent power is hotly contested.Footnote 45 In this paper, I broadly define constituent power as the power to create or fundamentally amend a constitution. This power belongs to the people. In other words, the people have the power to establish constitutional orders. As George Duke suggests, this statement encompasses two distinct ideas: that the people is the bearer or holder of the constituent power and that the people exercise constituent power – the people is the agent of constituent power. This distinction is crucial to articulating the relationship between political representation and constituent power. Ultimately, I argue that constituent power is best understood as ‘a creature of political representation’.Footnote 46
The idea of the people as the holder of constituent power can be traced back to Carl Schmitt’s reading of Sieyès’ work. According to Schmitt, the concrete existence of the politically unified people precedes any norm.Footnote 47 Schmitt did not believe in a diverse and plural understanding of society and developed this concept of the people as the ‘concrete existence’ that could control the risks of conflict.Footnote 48 Schmitt argued for an understanding of the people as a substantial unity with a shared intention and will. This reference to ‘concrete existence’ collides with normative readings of the constitution and constitutionalism, most famously Hans Kelsen’s pure theory of law. According to Kelsen, the people in a democracy have no distinct political existence prior to the legal order.Footnote 49 In other words, for Kelsen, even if we accept the idea of the people, it cannot have unity if there are no norms that can show how that unity can be achieved. Constituent power, for Kelsen, rests on the function of the basic founding norm (Grundnorm).
This classic Kelsen–Schmitt dispute about collective identity and the form of attribution of an individual’s act to a collective has shaped one of the most heated debates in modern constitutionalism. If we follow Kelsen, a strong notion of collective agency in democratic constitution-making is lost. This is because from a collective intentions perspective, the ‘self’ of the idea of self-government refers to a ‘we’ that is irreducible to the ‘I’ or to a pure aggregation of individuals. In other words, the collective is not the mere aggregation of individual wills. If we follow Schmitt, by dint of constituting the desired political unity, the ‘we’ would become tantamount to material or substantive equality among the members of a political community. Therefore, neither Kelsen nor Schmitt is able to explain the ‘we’ of constituent power.
While Schmitt’s conception of the people has been politically and sociologically influential, it seems unpersuasive in contemporary societies marked by pluralism and the diversity of modern polities. Now, whether one assumes that ‘the people’ should refer in a modern polity to the plurality of citizens, to a concrete multitude or to a unified corporate subject,Footnote 50 in all these cases, it is possible to attribute constitutional creation and change to the people as a subject. In other words, different interpretations of the status of the people are compatible with the proposition that ‘the people’ is the holder of constituent power, hence the relevance of distinguishing between the two statements described above – the people as the holder or bearer and the people as the agent. This is because, as George Duke explains, ‘the status of the people as the bearer of constituent power is independent of, and does not predetermine, its active exercise of constituent power’.Footnote 51
If we accept the proposition that being the holder or subject of constituent power is distinguishable from being the one who exercises constituent power, the question then becomes: What does it mean for the people to exercise constituent power? Here is where political representation, as a form of political process that enables the translation of society into politics, becomes an essential element in the theory of constituent power.
The place of political representation in democracy is not a straightforward oneFootnote 52 nor is its relationship with constituent power. Some authors, as Andreas Kalyvas and Antonio Negri, emphasise the role of ‘the people’ as the final authority and the source of the binding of law and strongly distrust traditional representative procedures.Footnote 53 Kalyvas states that ‘the normative content of the constituent sovereign is one of participation. This constituent power demands that those who are subject to a constitutional order co-institute it’,Footnote 54 while Negri describes the dynamic of constituent power as a permanent force that ‘bursts apart, breaks, interrupts, unhinges any preexisting equilibrium’ and continually opposes the order of representation.Footnote 55 For both of them, the direct involvement of the people is the normative ideal, and they strongly distrust traditional representative procedures. Both Kalyvas and Negri seem to equate democratic representation with institutionalised electoral politics.
In a similar way, in her analysis of Sieyès’ theory of constituent power, Lucia Rubinelli emphasises the tension between constituent power and political representation.Footnote 56 Sieyès argues that ‘the people, as a holder of constituent power, do not create the constitution themselves but delegate the writing process to extraordinarily elected representatives’.Footnote 57 This body acts on behalf of the people, delegating sovereignty to the representatives. Rubinelli critiques this model, highlighting the contradiction that while representatives are supposed to embody popular sovereignty, ‘the people’ are excluded from direct participation in the creation of the political order. Rubinelli further argues that the process of authorisation and delegation of power and the mere election of the representatives are two different things. One expresses the nation’s will to give itself a constitution, while the other is a simple procedure through which the ‘experts’ in the field of writing constitutions are selected.Footnote 58
I argue that the exercise of constituent power requires some form of political representation, insofar as it fulfils two essential functions. First, it plays a constitutive role in the formation of political groups and collective identity. Rather than merely reflecting a pre-existing reality, representative practices help bring that reality into being. Second, political representation enables the institutionalisation of claims, making them actionable through decision-making procedures. In the following section, I will explore what the representative approach to constituent power reveals through feminist manifestos. In doing so, I aim to present how the constitutive and procedural elements interrelate in innovative ways to broaden the spectrum of possibilities for manifestos as a political tool.
Crafting political representation through feminist manifestos
Manifestos offer new and multiple ways of thinking about the world, living and relating. As creative, theoretical and strategic political acts, they are constitutive writings of agency that operate to bring people together, build communities and generate collective action.Footnote 59 The process of women’s collective authorship helps to create – to constitute – political actors. Hence, manifestos play an essential political role not only because of their disruptive capacity but also because of their constitutive capacity. Against this background, I examine feminist manifestos to approach questions of political representation and constituent power, exploring how these texts articulate innovative ways of understanding representation as both constitutive and procedural, thereby broadening the horizons of what manifestos can achieve as political tools.
The following sections examine two key elements of feminist manifestos and their relationship to the idea of political representation: first, the notion of authorship and collective authorship; and second, the diverse forms of media through which feminist manifestos are expressed.
Authorship and collective authorship
One of the most significant aspects of manifesto analysis within feminist contexts is the notion of authorship. Generally, manifestos are collective endeavours, even though they are frequently attributed to individual leaders or secretaries. Many feminist manifestos are intentionally crafted as collaborative works. This collective nature extends beyond the mere sharing of writing duties; it also reflects a broader socio-political and communicative context. Feminist manifestos typically emphasise the active participation of women, positioning them as more than mere contributors. Manifestos are the result of feminist action: a diversity of voices, intertwined by experience, reflections and dialogue, grappling together with practical and theoretical problems. In this sense, feminist manifestos are inherently collaborative. As such, they are undeniably products of collective creation. Lindal Buchanan’s work sheds light on this collaboration, explaining that these manifestos are cooperative efforts that involve two or more individuals.Footnote 60 The final rhetorical outcome is shaped by both direct and indirect contributions from diverse voices, whose creative engagement ultimately determines the manifesto’s message.
The concept of collective authorship in feminist manifestos speaks directly to the broader question of representation. Even when a manifesto may appear to be written by one woman, it is essential to understand that this does not imply the presence of a solitary individual. Rather, it signifies the collective voice. This collective voice challenges the idea of individual ownership of knowledge and representation. If a manifesto were to be solely authored by one individual, would it still represent the group? Would representation need to be evidenced differently? These questions prompt us to think critically about the relationship between authorship and representation in the context of feminist activism. How does the act of collective authorship strengthen the political representation of a community? Is representation more authentic when it reflects the contributions of many voices, and does this shape the manifesto’s effectiveness in conveying the group’s political stance?
Through collective authorship, feminist manifestos give voice to a multiplicity of individuals and communities, thus representing not just a single viewpoint but a collective stance. This collective construction is crucial because it allows for the recognition of the group’s political subjectivity. In other words, the manifesto functions as both a political statement and a vehicle for the formation of a political group. In this sense, this construction of political groups is in direct alignment with Nadia Urbinati’s theory of social to political representation. Urbinati emphasises the importance of the process through which social groups come together to form political communities. For Urbinati, representation is not simply about the translation of a pre-existing social will into political action but involves a dynamic process in which individuals come together, deliberate and construct a shared political identity.Footnote 61 This construction process is often messy, complex and contested. It is through collective acts – such as writing, unwritten and non-textual manifestos, or engaging in symbolic acts of protest – that social movements begin to form a political group.
Various forms of support media
In unpacking the role of political representation in feminist manifestos, it is also important to consider the various forms of media used in their creation. Feminist manifestos often extend beyond the written word, incorporating non-textual and non-verbal forms of expression. A prime example of this is the use of crafts such as knitting, embroidery and weaving, which serve as mediums for political expression and collective effort, typically through participatory textiles. These craft practices, traditionally considered women’s domestic activities, have historically been undervalued and relegated to private, domestic spheres.Footnote 62 However, in different parts of the world,Footnote 63 activities such as embroidery and knitting have played a key role in raising women’s political awareness, strengthening their social and community relations and constituting subjectivities. They have even been labelled as a subversive aesthetic strategy.Footnote 64 These crafts represent a form of feminist practice, offering a unique means for women to create and develop knowledge, while simultaneously making political statements.Footnote 65 These activities thus have been reimagined as potent tools for political engagement.
If we take these collective efforts seriously, we must also ask: Can forms of political expression like knitting or embroidery be seen as legitimate forms of political representation? In a constitutional framework that traditionally prioritises written texts and legal documents, how do these alternative forms of expression find their place? Is there space within the discourse of political representation for non-verbal, embodied and tactile forms of political engagement? In considering these questions, we can begin to broaden our understanding of political representation in the context of feminist activism. Feminist manifestos that use both written and non-written forms of media not only challenge traditional notions of political representation but also offer new ways of conceptualising the relationship between authorship, community and political action. By embracing these diverse forms of expression, feminist manifestos create a space where multiple voices can be heard, where the individual and the collective come together and where political engagement can be expressed in a multitude of ways.
The manifestos’ capacity to create political and communal spaces and to generate joint action as a means of constituting political actors, with collective authorship and through non-textual or non-written media, can be seen in the case of the arpilleras. These are an ancient artisanal tradition that was transformed into a strategy of civil disobedience during the Chilean dictatorship.Footnote 66 In a context of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions, the economic recession pushed many working-class families below the poverty line and forced women to look for alternative ways to support their families.Footnote 67 During this crisis, ‘soup kitchens’ (called ollas comunes), organised by pobladoras (women living in a slum or poor neighbourhood) themselves, emerged as a solidarity response to the impoverishment of their families and as a space for protest.Footnote 68 Similarly, community initiatives, such as manual training courses, were implemented under the protective wing of the Church, becoming forms of resistance and emancipation. Among them, the first arpilleras workshop opened in March 1974.Footnote 69
From then on and throughout the dictatorship, using this artisanal technique, arpilleristas (women who make arpilleras) crafted these manifestos that are testimonies to the lived experiences of Chilean citizens throughout the Pinochet regime. They documented the stories of the women and their communities, denounced the cruelty of the government and testified to the human rights abuses perpetrated by the dictatorship. As such, using colourful textile works backed with burlap to convey political messages and positions, they emerged as political actors, first, through experiencing self-awareness and the acknowledgement of the self, ‘ser-hacer mujer’ (being a woman),Footnote 70 and then as an active political subject.
From the experience of the arpilleristas during the dictatorship to the present, the practice of knitting has been historically embedded in the collective imagination of the feminist movement in Chile. It is no coincidence that Julieta Kirkwood, a Chilean intellectual and activist, used the expression ‘tejer rebeldías’ (weaving rebellions) to describe the emergence of new forms of mobilisation during the dictatorship.Footnote 71 Today, ‘textile activism’,Footnote 72 also called ‘craftivism’,Footnote 73 is widespread not only in Chile, but in all Latin American countries as a feminist political act. Thus, knitting and embroidery are part of the tactical repertoire of feminist manifestos.
The interrelation of these two elements – authorship and different media – gives these kinds of manifestos the flexibility to allow different and sometimes contradictory voices to express themselves and be politically visible, reflecting a particular time and place. For instance, from the second half of the twentieth century onward, manifestos used by feminist and women’s groups grew and spread across diverse areas:Footnote 74 radical lesbians,Footnote 75 riot girls, transfeminists and black feminists,Footnote 76 covering issues such as political art, masturbation and female orgasm,Footnote 77 abortion,Footnote 78 unpaid labour, anti-capitalism and indigenous peoples’ rights.Footnote 79 Similarly, this plasticity makes room for the diversity of content that manifestos can carry, allowing the voices of those who have been historically excluded to be amplified. Thus, the malleability of form is also used as a tool of adaptability to the needs of equality. In this sense, they are critical pieces that put marginalised groups that do not play a role in traditional agendas and spaces at the centre.Footnote 80
This formal adaptability has also enabled the development of an intersectional approach, bringing together different axes of social, economic and political oppression. A telling example of this is the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977, a landmark manifesto authored by a collective of Black lesbian feminists in the United States. The statement articulated a vision of liberation grounded in the recognition that racism, sexism, classism and heterosexism are interlocking systems of oppression.Footnote 81 By doing so, their manifesto exemplifies the political and theoretical force of feminist manifestos: to give shape and visibility to voices that are multiply excluded and to propose political projects attuned to that complexity.
The Chilean case
In Chile, feminist manifestos have been fundamental in the political strategies and tools of the feminist and women’s movement, particularly within the context of the struggle for democracy since the 1980s. Nevertheless, they have not played a role in the construction of the country’s constitutional order. On the contrary, sometimes due to neglect and sometimes because of a strong rejection of the involvement of social movements, the constitutive capacity of feminist manifestos has been largely ignored in the Chilean constitutional tradition. However, with the involvement of the feminist movement and the CF8M in the 2019–2022 constitution-making process, the manifesto as a constituent political tool has become a meaningful object of analysis for constitutional law.
The Chilean feminist movement is diverse in its theoretical, political and strategic approaches. Hence, referring to it as a unified actor may be contested. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this analysis, I focus on the role played by the CF8M as the most prominent feminist organisation at the national level that explicitly distances itself from political parties. One of its activists, Alondra Carrillo Vidal, served as a spokesperson for the CF8M and was also elected to the Constitutional Convention. It was around her work that the CF8M structured its efforts to influence the constituent body.
The first part of this section develops three interrelated elements of the performative approach to feminist constituent power through the case of the CF8M. First, it examines the construction of the political subject ‘we the people’ as an incomplete and ongoing process. Second, it explores the role of rupture as a necessary condition for the formation of this political entity. Third, it analyses how this rupture is embedded within a broader historical and political genealogy, rather than occurring in a constitutional vacuum. Through these lenses, the political action of the CF8M – particularly the strike and the manifesto – is considered as a performative and constitutive force that challenges traditional understandings of constituent power. In the second part of this section, and building upon the three components outlined above, I develop a critical perspective focused on two further dimensions: the dual position between potestas and potentia and the feminist movement’s critical stance regarding the idea and practice of political representation. Together, I refer to these as the ‘unanswered questions’ of the Chilean feminist movement. These questions expose the limits of the performative approach to constituent power and foreground the need to address them by incorporating political representation as a central element.
The performative approach of constituent power in the political action of the CF8M
The CF8M emerged as an umbrella of dozens of independent organisations that came together as a single structure to organise the demonstration on 8 March 2018. As Alondra Carrillo Vidal explains, they met for the first time in January 2018, when they were not yet called CF8M.Footnote 82 After that historic rally, which brought together more than 300,000 people, it was decided to build this space for coordination. Carrillo Vidal says that,
‘In March, after the demonstration, we decided to continue operating as a coalition to organise the path to the strike and we set ourselves three objectives: to cross-cut a feminist perspective within the social movement, to dynamize the articulation between different organisations throughout the national territory and to propose a common agenda of mobilisations against the precariousness of life, which had been the slogan around which we had organised ourselves for 8M’.Footnote 83
This meeting after the march of 8 March 2018, held at the offices of the Student Federation of the University of Chile, brought together trade union leaders, women from grassroots organisations, feminist activists who did not participate in any organisation, territorial feminist collectives, professors, students and a range of organisations linked to gender issues.Footnote 84 Thus, a multiplicity of voices that have been historically excluded came together under the umbrella of the CF8M. Since then, the CF8M organises annual mass meetings, called ‘Encuentros Plurinacionales de las y les que luchan’ (Plurinational Forums of Those Who Fight).Footnote 85 Today, CF8M presents itself as ‘a space that articulates, from a feminist perspective, multiple and diverse social, political and individual organisations’. From this point of view, they seek to ‘make feminism a transversal perspective and political action of social movements, promote the meeting, dialogue and collective action between different organisations and promote a common agenda of mobilisations from a feminism of majorities against the precariousness of life’.Footnote 86
The CF8M has led feminist social mobilisation in the country since 2018, through a series of political actions that put pressure on constituted powers. For example, in 2019, the CF8M organised a feminist general strike.Footnote 87 As part of the strike, CF8M carried out an urban intervention in the Santiago Metro network. In this intervention, almost 50 stations of the underground network were renamed in honour of women in Chilean history.Footnote 88 For example, at the capital’s main station, named Baquedano station in honour of the general and politician Manuel Jesús Baquedano born in 1823, it read ‘Violeta Parra station’ in honour of the Chilean artist and composer, recognized as one of the leading folklorists and popular music promoters in Latin America. Other stations were renamed Elena Caffarena (lawyer and politician born in 1903, who fought for the working class and women’s emancipation), Gabriela Mistral (poet and teacher born in 1889, she was the first Latin American woman and the second Latin American person to receive a Nobel Prize), Lenka Franulic (first Chilean journalist, born in 1908) and Amanda Labarca (teacher and politician born in 1886, she fought for women’s suffrage in Chile). Thus, the strike acts as a lens, providing a particular perspective to understand and contextualise the issues that the feminist movement seeks to problematise.Footnote 89
Manifestos are essential political tools in the work of the CF8M. In 2020, on the occasion of the general feminist strike on 8 and 9 March, CF8M launched the ‘Manifiesto de la Coordinadora Feminista 8M’ (hereafter, the 2020 Manifesto).Footnote 90 In April 2020, CF8M adhered to the ‘Manifiesto feminista transfronterizo para salir juntas de la pandemia y cambiar el sistema’ (Cross-border feminist manifesto to overcome the pandemic together and change the system). This manifesto brought together the feminist movement in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Ecuador, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United States and Uruguay.Footnote 91 These expressions of the feminist movement reveal elements that are in dialogue with the manifesto functions explained by Ruth Houghton and Aoife O’Donoghue.
First, they play a role in identity construction. The 2020 Manifesto begins by situating itself as an action that brings together all women, lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, travestis,Footnote 92 non-binary and transgender people, who collectively rise up to make history.Footnote 93 As such, the 2020 Manifesto is constitutive of a group or political space that recognizes itself ‘on the front line of the battle against state terrorism, patriarchal and pre-patriarchal violence, and the precariousness of life’.Footnote 94 In this identity building, the 2020 Manifesto as a political tool places at the centre those subjectivities that have historically been subjugated or marginalized from public debate. The 2020 Manifesto recognizes feminism as a ‘transformative social force, to oppose the precariousness of life and all those who have administered it for the last 30 years’.Footnote 95 In doing so, the constitutive function toward grouping and community building is also an exercise that allows it to identify antagonisms and points of conflict with opposing forces.
Another element of identity construction in feminist manifestos that is reflected in the 2020 Manifesto is the challenge to the public–private distinction. From there, it disputes one of the most characteristic elements of modern constitutionalism, which is the strict separation between those issues that belong to the private sphere – typically family affairs – and those that belong to the sphere of the public and the state. The 2020 Manifesto thus represents the predominant feminist public discourse illustrated by the famous slogan coined during the dictatorship in Chile: ‘democracy in the country and in the home’.Footnote 96 This slogan attributed to Julieta Kirkwood, a Chilean theorist and activist, has been revived in protests by contemporary feminists as ‘democracy in the country, in the home and in the bed’.
Second, the 2020 Manifesto was a call to occupy the public space, calling for political strike action that signifies a ‘break’ with normality.Footnote 97 Public statements by CF8M spokeswomen and members show that the element of ‘rupture’ or ‘break’ is essential to the organisation’s narrative. In doing so, the feminist movement becomes aware of the irritating or destituyente Footnote 98 character of its action as a process of rupture or break with the status quo. Thus, from readings of constituent power, the feminist movement uses the revolutionary rupture to reconstitute its political entity.Footnote 99
The strike organized by the CF8M took on an eminently disruptive character. Carrillo Vidal and Manzi Araneda, situating the strike in the context of the October 2019 uprising, describe it as follows,
What was under way, even before the uprising of Friday 18 October, is the potency of what we have called a momento destituyente (…) To say no to a way of life in order to displace it, de-instituting police repression and state persecution, de-instituting neoliberal governability, transitional normality and technocracy as the administration of the same, finally de-instituting the precariousness of our lives and all the violence that crosses our bodies. De-instituting is necessarily to imagine another possible and to begin to constitute its, our, forms in the process.Footnote 100
The ‘rupture’ therefore is not exhausted in itself: it also serves as a moment of invention and accumulation of forces. From this duality of rupture as both irritating and creative, feminism aspires to drive its claims for fundamental transformations based on a creative capacity that is both individual and collective. This is where feminist manifestos as a form of claiming power that articulates the political subjectivity of the feminist movement play an essential role not only because of their irritant character but also because of their constitutive capacity.
Third, the contemporary feminist movement that aspired to express itself in the constituent process takes up these roots and the historical trajectory of feminism in Chile. Thus, the political movement seeks to be aware of its continuities and ruptures in an exercise of feminist genealogy. This allows it to understand itself as part of a broader and more comprehensive narrative that does not begin with the social revolt of 2019 but is heir to a struggle waged by hundreds of women before us in Chile and Latin America. In the words of the CF8M: ‘We also recognise ourselves as heirs and continuers of this political project that seeks the emancipation of life’.Footnote 101
This can be seen in how the practices of feminism from past decades have an impact on the practices of feminism today. During the dictatorship, in December 1983, on the first national protest and the re-founding of the Movimiento Pro Emancipación de la Mujer Chilena (Movement for the Emancipation of Chilean Women, known by its Spanish acronym MEMCH) as a coordinating body for women’s organisations,Footnote 102 the ‘Manifiesto Feminista: Demandas Feministas a la Democracia’ (Feminist Manifesto: Feminist Demands for Democracy) was published. This document summarises the demands of women in the struggle for democracy in the areas of politics, labour, social security and the welfare state, education, the family, the law, and violence. The central element of this Manifesto is that ‘no democratisation project will be viable, valid or fair if it does not address the problems of discrimination that 50 per cent of the population suffer because of being women’.Footnote 103 Thus, the starting point of the manifesto is the demand for women’s political equality as an indispensable element of democracy.
Furthermore, as part of this exercise of constituting a political group or space, manifestos typically mention and build on certain events of the past, while highlighting intentions for future action as a constantly evolving process. Thus, the 2020 Manifesto is anchored in the history of the country to construct a narrative that is both historical and forward-looking:
Because it’s not 30 Chilean pesos, it’s 30 years since the return to ‘democracy’.Footnote 104 It is 47 years since the military coup that deposed the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende. It is 500 years since the Spaniards declared war on the indigenous peoples of this territory. The October uprising simmered over a slow and bitter fire (…) We are going on strike because we are fighting for another life, for a life that we are owed and that today, finally, we are getting to recover.Footnote 105
Through this practice of political memory, the feminist movement does not situate its political action in a ‘constitutional vacuum’, but rather assumes the historical aspect of its own shaping. The manifesto as a means of claiming a political position has a long history in the women’s and feminist movement in Chile. Thereby, it distances itself from more classical populist positions on constituent power, such as Schmitt, Böckenförde and Negri.
In sum, based on the elements described above, there are three features to highlight in the reading of constituent power in feminist manifestos in the case under analysis. All of them are expressions of what Houghton and O’Donoghue propose in their performative approach to feminist constituent power. First, the construction of ‘we the people’ as holders of constituent power by the Chilean feminist movement is purported as an ‘incomplete’ and ongoing process. Second, based on this disruptive construction of the ‘we the people’, the mode of being of a political entity needs the ‘rupture’. Third, this ‘rupture’ does not take place in a ‘constitutional vacuum’ but is part of a constant creative exercise by feminist movements. Ultimately, the political action of the CF8M – the strike and the manifesto – repeatedly demands political practices and experiences that do not fit into the construction of the ‘we the people’ as the holder of a static constituent power, which is exhausted or extinguished after the constituent moment. In doing so, they embrace Gago’s idea of feminist power and advocate the construction of a collective identity that is open and in constant movement.
The unanswered questions of the chilean feminist movement
Analysing these events in light of the theoretical approach discussed in this paper, two critical aspects emerge in the Chilean feminist movement and its role in the recent constituent process: the dual position between potestas and potentia and the critical stance that the feminist movement holds regarding the idea and practices of political representation.
The feminist movement in Chile holds a dual position between potestas and potentia. In other words, the notions of potestas and potentia are overlapped in the role played by the CF8M in the constitution-making process. The feminist movement exercises a potentia that unfolds as such with its capacity to transform political practices; it is disruptive, and at the same time, it contributes to a certain construction of identity. But in parallel, by entering the constituent body, the feminist movement is in a position of holder and may eventually exercise potestas insofar as it is required to fulfil its representative role. The feminist movement is aware of this duality: ‘this historic arrival in spaces of debate is not a reason to let go of the streets. On the contrary, it is one of the driving forces to continue demanding rights, equality, and dignity’.Footnote 106 It could be said, then, that by collapsing the distinction between the two elements – potestas and potentia – the Chilean feminist movement reflects Gago’s concept of feminist constituent power, what she refers to feminist potencia.
This position is not necessarily problematic. If the Constitutional Convention, as a whole, as a deliberative body, is the holder of constituent power, it is also recognized as having the capacity to disrupt established political practices. Thus, as opposed to the National Congress, for instance, which would be the holder of constituted power (potestas), the Constitutional Convention would be the holder of constituent power (potentia). The main debate on this issue centred around Article 135 of the Constitution, which stipulates that the Convention cannot exercise powers that have not been specifically assigned to it, particularly sovereign powers, which reside with the Nation. A group of members of the Convention, however, argued that the Convention, as the bearer of the original constituent power, was not bound by the ‘country’s existing institutional framework’.Footnote 107 If that is the case, the Constitutional Convention is recognized as having the capacity to exercise potentia as the holder of constituent power. This would mean that, both on the street and in the constituent body, the feminist movement is in fact capable of exercising its feminist potencia. Javiera Manzi, former spokesperson of CF8M, puts it this way: ‘The constituent process and potencia feminista are two sides of the same coin’.Footnote 108 In the end, this dispute reveals the status of the Convention both as a representative body and as the actual holder of constituent power.
How is the constituent power held by CF8M exercised? The problem arises when CF8M diverges from political representation, arguing that the feminist movement, through its political practices – such as the manifesto – claims ownership of constituent power without mediation. In other words, the creative constitutive capacity of the manifesto is understood as the ability to construct identity and constitute collective will but without considering mechanisms to connect this will with the citizens who delegate their authority. This leads to the proposal by Gago, adopted by Houghton and O’Donoghue, which collapses postestas and potentia. In doing so, although it may explain the constitutive capacity of manifestos, it loses explanatory power regarding the democratic development of constitutions through the institutionalisation of constituent power via its representative exercise.
As explained earlier, the concept of political representation encompasses, on the one hand, the construction of group identity through representative practices and, on the other, the act of representing within a political or institutional process. Within this framework, the CF8M seems open to participating in the representative constitution of collective identity but is reluctant to be institutionalized within the representative practices of the Convention. This tension reflects a broader ambivalence in contemporary feminist politics: while collective identity is constructed and expressed through shared authorship, performative action and mobilisation in the form of feminist manifestos, there remains a marked suspicion toward institutional mechanisms of representation. Yet, as the practice of collective authorship shows, representation is not necessarily synonymous with institutional capture or political compromise. Rather, it can serve as a constitutive tool that enables plural voices to form a collective subject with political agency. In the case of the CF8M, the reluctance to fully engage institutional representation may limit the transformative potential of its constituent power by leaving unresolved the question of how plural feminist demands are articulated, mediated and legitimised in processes of democratic constitution-making.
Despite being part of the Constitutional Convention, the CF8M does not seek to play a mediating role in functioning as a representative within the political process. In the election campaign process, all four candidates from the CF8M to the Constitutional Convention presented themselves as members of the social movement, affirming that, as such, ‘our voice is non-delegable’.Footnote 109 During her opening speech at the Constitutional Convention, Alondra Carrillo Vidal presented herself as the ‘constituent spokesperson of the territorial assemblies’, affirming ‘I have not come into the Constitutional Convention alone (…) that presence of ours, irreducible and inescapable (…) I walk in (to the Convention) with all my comrades’.Footnote 110 From this perspective, the CF8M seems to reject the element of mediation that is embedded in political representation, which is perceived as undermining the democratic character of political and community relations. Instead, the statements of spokespersons and members of the CF8M use the idea of ‘self-representation’.Footnote 111 Although the content of this idea of ‘self-representation’ is not entirely clear, it seems to emphasise more than the mere presence of people who consider themselves part of a certain social group.Footnote 112 Carrillo Vidal and Karina Nohales, former CF8M spokesperson, put it this way:
That is why, when the possibility of participating in the Constitutional Convention with parity and self-representation from the social movement, without mediation and without party subordination, was made available –pandemic and demobilisation meanwhile– we decided to be there.Footnote 113
This critical view of political representation merges ‘talking’ (will) and ‘doing’ (judgment) in those who act as representatives. And to do so is to give up representation, at least in the form it has been known hitherto. By discarding mediation, the representative relationship becomes static, instead of a constant, multiple and fluid dialogue between the representative and the represented. Political representation, then, is not understood as a dynamic and socially constructed relationship, nor does it attend to the circular process of input and output that characterises how democratic communities define the idea of public interest through representative processes. In the case of the Chilean feminist movement, this leads it to renounce its function as a mediator; that is, it refuses to situate itself in the relationship between the citizenry and the institutions. In doing so, the feminist movement does not assume a different and differentiated sphere from the citizenry but rather understands itself as the citizenry.
This is problematic because it perceives itself in an unmediated twofold role. This is the case as former CF8M spokeswomen declare that they perceive themselves as holders of the will and judgement of the social movement, without mediation, and in that capacity, they enter the constituent body to perform sovereignty. By rejecting political representation, it fails to provide a satisfactory justification for democratic constitution-making. Constituent representation is, like all forms of political representation, inevitably a site of political struggle, and more responsive, indicative and inclusive forms of representation are required.
Conclusion
Feminist manifestos as an expression of constituent power have been scarcely analysed in constitutional theory, hence the originality and relevance of the work of Ruth Houghton and Aoife O’Donoghue. For these authors, taking the notion of power as feminist potencia explained by Verónica Gago and from a performative view of power, feminist manifestos challenge the classical liberal approaches to the concepts of people and constituent power that have dominated the debate. Power as potencia comprises our capacity to do, to be affected and to affect our environment. Feminist power has the virtue of folding, in a continuum, the elements of protest, revolution and founding processes as itineraries of constituent power. In this exercise, manifestos would operate in a dual manner: at the same time as they disrupt the institutional order, they deploy their creative or constituent potential.
Feminist manifestos as subversive writings emanating from marginality serve as factors of emancipation and social transformation. They are therefore relevant for the recognition of historically excluded groups and for the construction of political subjectivities that participate in the formation of states and constitutions. Social and political practices that bring together experiences, expectations, memories and trajectories conducted through collective creations such as manifestos are constitutional resources of authority and legitimacy. They serve therefore as new ways of understanding the structure and foundations of the contemporary state.
Despite the long tradition of manifestos in international feminism, with notable experiences in Latin America and Chile, the Chilean constitutional tradition has not adequately valued the role that these instruments play in the constitutional foundation of our political community, hence the relevance of highlighting the role played by the CF8M in the recent constitution-making process. From political strategies such as the feminist general strike, the Chilean feminist movement recognises the historical rupture or break – materialised in the social revolt of 2019 – as an irritant or destituyente element endowed, in turn, with a creative or constituent capacity. Recognising their own creative capacity, the feminist movement also situates itself as the ‘inheritors’ of a narrative that precedes them. The 2020 Manifesto takes up the tradition, the various historically subjugated subjectivities that have shaped and shape it, and sets a boundary with those it feels antagonistic toward. In doing so, it rejects representation as something that divests the social movement of its capacity to make politics and projects itself into the future.
However, in the light of the notion of power as potentia – separated from potestas – the question arises: if the concept of representation as a means of building political community is abandoned on the grounds that it separates the represented from their power or capacity to act, how then can the democratic character of constituent power – in the sense of self-government – be defended? No democratic political community is possible without some form of representation. Hence, it is crucial to reflect on the conditions that render representation democratic, focusing on the subjective and material transformations involved rather than rejecting it outright. In this sense, political representation is not merely about elected officials or political parties but about the collective voice of the group being recognised and institutionalised.
This process of transition from manifesto to political action is essential to understanding how feminist manifestos contribute to the broader struggle for political representation and constituent power. In this exercise, the analysis of two essential components of feminist manifestos – namely, collective authorship and the various media through which they are expressed – directly addresses the broader questions concerning the role political representation plays in the construction of political identity and the institutionalisation of that representation. From this perspective, this paper has shown that performative conceptions of constituent power appear insufficient to explain democratic constitution-making.
Seen from this perspective, the discussion opened in this paper responds directly to the initial questions regarding the role of political representation in a theory of feminist constituent power and the institutional translation of feminist manifestos. Through the Chilean case, and particularly the action of the CF8M, I have shown that while feminist manifestos hold significant performative and constitutive potential, this alone does not suffice to legitimise constituent processes in democratic terms. In this sense, political representation should not be dismissed but reimagined as a dynamic, plural and inclusive process, one that bridges the street and the institution without reducing one to the other. Ultimately, the potential of feminist manifestos as instruments of constituent power can only be realised when they are accompanied by representative practices that reflect, constitute and institutionalise the collective subject they claim to voice.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the participants of the PhD Work-in-Progress Seminar at the Faculty of Laws, University College London, especially Anna Stelle, as well as the participants of the symposium ‘New and Emerging Voices in Constitutional Law’ (2024) at the Centre for Constitutional Studies, University College Dublin. I am also deeply grateful to Professor Silvia Șuteu, Dr Ruth Houghton, Professor Micaela Alterio, and Professor Erin Delaney for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article, and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive feedback.
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