The document discusses the concept of constitutionalization and its application to multi-corporate enterprises in the 21st century. It distinguishes between constitutions, constitutionalism, and constitutionalization. Constitutions refer to the formation of autonomous institutions. Constitutionalism provides the framework and ideology that guides these institutions. Constitutionalization serves to create a common language and framework for interaction between diverse constitutional systems through the concepts of community and operationalizing principles. The conclusion ties these concepts together, stating that constitutionalization will succeed by aligning operations with stakeholder expectations based on constitutionalist traditions.

1. The Concept of Constitutionalization and the
Multi-Corporate Enterprise in the 21st Century—
The Body Corporate From Incarnation to
Ensoulment to Ministry (But Whose?)
• Larry Catá Backer
– W. Richard and Mary Eshelman Faculty Scholar & Professor of Law, Professor of
International Affairs 2013-14, Pennsylvania State University. The author may be
contacted at lcb911@gmail.com.
• International Seminar 19-20 June 2014
• Constitutionalization of the World-Power System
– Organised by the Economy, Man and Society Research Department, Collège des
Bernardins and the University of Paris Nanterre
– Collège des BERNARDINS, 18-20 Rue de Poissy 75005 Paris

2. Introduction
• Considering concept of constitutionalism
• Distinguish among three elements
– Constitutions
• Incarnation; autonomy self referencing
– Constitutionalism
• Ensoulment; 4 significant schools
– (1) Global (2) Transnational (3) polycentric
constitutionalism, and (4) World Power System approach
– Constitutionalization
• Ministry; common platform
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3. Thesis
• Constitutionalism serves as
– an amalgam of the desire or intent (understood as a
cultural instruction or preference) to invoke the
frameworks of constitutionalism for the formation and
interactions of bodies corporate
– provides a framework applicable to any organized group,
from states to non-state actors, that seeks to govern
themselves through an entity autonomous of other
entities and of its constituent parts (the community of
believers).
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4. Roadmap
• Consider the way in which constitutionalization is
expressed through through its constituent
elements
– Incarnation (constitutional formation)
– Ensoulment (constitutionalism)
– Community and Ministry (constitutionalization)
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5. Constitutions
• Where and what is bring formed?
• An autonomous being?
• a ghost within the state system?
• The corporate body made flesh, but is it subject
only to its own desires and those of its stakeholders
without limit?
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6. Constitutionalism
• Ideology; eating the apple in Eden.
• Sources and Oppositions
– Global Constitutionalism
• International community
– Transnational Constitutionalism
• The community of states
– Polycentric constitutionalism
• Community of stakeholders
– WPS
• The liberal constitutional traditions of the West
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7. Constitutionalization
• Community
– a drive toward universalism in the constitutionalist,
which is necessary for the triumph of the normative
reality at the heart of each version of constitutionalism,
• constitutionalization thus describes both the attempt to
fit all governance within constitutionalist ideals, but also to
fit all constitutionalist ideals together into a coherent
framework
• Ministry
– “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by
faith only” (James 2:24)
– Operationalization as manifestation of community
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8. Conclusion
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9. Conclusion
• (1) it is the form of constitutions
that now serve as the basis for
institutional formation, for their
incarnation as a tangible
expression of an abstraction
• (2) it is the normative structures
of constitutionalism that provides
the “soul” of those institutional
forms, that serve as the basis of
their autonomy from their
creators and operators and that
guide them between right and
wrong,
• (3) it is constitutionalization that
serves as the foundation for a
common language of interaction
among an increasingly diverse set
of constitutional creatures,
through the notion of community
and ministry inherent in the
concept of constitutionalism.
• (4) It is the constitutionalist
system that in its operation is
most compatible with the
expectations customs of
stakeholders that will succeed.
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